When we first started working on the Julia Child app, I recall Judith Jones (Julia’s longtime editor) telling me a story about walking into Julia’s kitchen while she was cooking and seeing notes on paper taped up all over the walls and cupboards. I wish there was a picture of this, a young Julia Child working in a vintage kitchen in Paris, scratching notes and taping up papers so that she could document the best way to show the home cook how to make a particular dish. She went through the paces and kept at it until she felt she got it right. That’s truly inspirational, and something we used as a guiding principle as we worked on the Julia Child app over these last 6 months or so.
I really like the picture above because it encapsulates this principle. That’s photographer Marcus Nilsson and food stylist Rebecca Jurkevich working to photograph a soufflé for the app. The one in the picture didn’t cut it, so it was back to the kitchen to do it all over again. I think it took about five to get it right.
The app — Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Selected Recipes — is available today (July 19, 2012) on the iPad and NOOK.