Julia Child Got Me Pregnant

August 15, 2012

Everyone is sharing their favorite Julia Child stories, memories, and recipes, so I think I'll get in on the 100th birthday celebrations and finally come clean about something: Julia Child got me pregnant.

At least, her amazing flank steak marinade did. It's a recipe my mother-in-law passed along to us and she cites Julia's second cookbook, The French Chef Cookbook (1968) as the original source:

From my mother-in-law's email to me: "[Julia] marinates the steak at room temperature for at least 20 minutes, or refrigerates it "for several hours or a day or two. I always leave the steak at room temp. for 1/2 - 1 hour.

3 T finely minced shallots and garlic
1 1/2 T soy sauce
2 T olive oil
1/2 tsp dried thyme
big pinch hot pepper flakes or several drops Tabasco
the juice of 1/2 lemon

Combine all the ingredients and spread 1/2 the marinade on each side of the flanksteak."

The very first time I ever whisked up those ingredients, rubbed them into a perfect slab of meat from Andronico's, broiled it to ruby rare perfection in our tiny kitchen, and feasted on the fabulous results was also the time I got pregnant. (Something we didn't know, by the way, until our first prenatal visit charted out my nine months for us, predicted my due date, and told us the conception date.)

Maybe it was the moon, maybe it was Andronico's perfect steak, or maybe it was Julia's magic marinade, but no other recipe has ever been so delicious or so life-changing.

You can keep the Boeuf Bourguignons, the Coq au Vins, and the crêpes. This will always be my favorite Julia Child recipe.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you Julia -- don't you just want to eat him up?