Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Happy 100th birthday Julia Child
Julia Child did not like nutritionists.
She thought our interest in nutritional values (“nutritionism”) had ruined the pleasure and cultural meaning of food.
In 1991, the food writer and cookbook author Nancy Harmon Jenkins, had the thrilling (if overly optimistic) idea that if Julia met me, she would change her mind about nutritionists. Nancy arranged to host a dinner party to introduce us.
But woe. Nancy fell and broke her foot.
Julia would do the dinner. In her Cambridge kitchen!
I wish I could say that the evening was a great success but it did not go well. Julia did sign my copy of Mastering, but grudgingly (even though it had been so well used that it was falling apart).
Later, after my NYU department introduced our academic programs in Food Studies—so clearly inspired by her work—she relented.
I have a handful of treasured cards and letters from her. Here’s one:
I miss her.
As does everyone else:
- Julia Moskin’s thoughtful and affectionate overview in the New York Times
- Jacques Pépin’s lovely tribute, also in the Times
- PBS’s remix of old clips (thanks to Alyce Conrad for sending the link)
- Frontburner tributes from the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals)
- And the Google homepage today:
