You will note that with the advent of the movie Julie & Julia, French cooking in the splendid style of Julia Child is in the news.

I have long been a Julia Child fan — since I first learned my way around a kitchen while working on railway dining cars. I can turn out a rare roast of beef, crème caramel, light and fluffy scrambled eggs, and corned beef hash with crunchy edges. (As well, I am a splendid dishwasher.)

My first real experience with Julia came with potage cresson. Or, as one might say, watercress soup.

Julia had a deft touch with cream soups. She favoured minced onion, butter, watercress, three tablespoons of flour, stock, egg yolks, whipping cream and more butter. I followed this recipe painstakingly a couple of times; but one day, when I needed green soup in a hurry, I dropped a frozen block of spinach in a pot of stock, let it boil and then ran it though the blender. Then I dumped in some cream.

When asked for my recipe, I cunningly remarked it had originated with Julia Child.

I adapted, so to speak, several other recipes from her books on French cooking. But one week, when I needed a nourishing but fancy meal, I came up against her version of cassoulet. A monumental concoction, it calls for at least 20 ingredients. One is preserved goose, which always seems to be in short supply around my house.

However, the whole dish sounded perfect and I could devote a couple of days to it, so I went out and bought a fancy, enamel-lined roasting pot. Into this, at various times, went two pounds of white beans, a large lump of salt pork, perhaps four pounds of lamb and a couple of pounds of sliced sausage. Along with assorted spices, onion and garlic, and a heart-stopping amount of rendered goose fat.

But I couldn’t get my hands on a goose worthy of preserving, so I roasted a duck, skinned it, cut it up and dumped it in. Then, I roasted the duck skin some more for crackling. (I think that’s what crackling is, but, frankly, I was getting a bit confused.)

When this whole dish had been in the oven for perhaps a day, I took it out, added more stock and a few slices of back bacon and topped it all with several cups of buttered bread crumbs.

My cassoulet was considered to be a huge success by those at my dinner party; but it was such a huge meal, I was eating it for the next four days. Funny that no one wanted to take some home in a Tupperware dish.

The above dinner was eaten — served, actually — in an expensive part of Toronto in which we briefly lived. Then, a few years later, living deep in the country where the beverage of choice with dinner is Pepsi, I was asked to provide a nourishing dish for some gathering.

I once again called on my cassoulet. Only this time, I forgot about preserved goose and roast duck and stuck in a couple of pounds of double-smoked bacon. As well as, of course, sausage, lamb, pork, fat, beans, stock, onions and garlic.

On the appointed night, I sent it off to the dinner, where I assumed it would shine amid the usual rustic fare of jellied salads, mini marshmallows, and franks and beans.

Perhaps it did. Perhaps all who glanced at it and peered into its depths were so in awe that no one could break the surface with a spoon. In any event, it came back virgo intacta.

Luckily, at just that moment, there was a young mother in my kitchen who mentioned she needed a fast supper for her three kids. I thrust the cassoulet into her hands and sent her off for a nourishing family supper.

The next day, there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, the large pot was sitting there. Inside, perhaps 10 pounds of cassoulet. Undented by spoon. And a note: “Thanks, the kids preferred peanut butter.”

I ate what I could for a couple of days, then shared the rest with the dogs. When I let them lick the pot, they liked it so much they chewed on the enamel coating — which I took as a good sign.

@page_break@That was my last cassoulet. IE