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Julia Child’s Dishes Shouldn’t Look Like Food Porn

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Christine Tobin can still taste Julia Child’s Duck a l’Orange—or at least the recipe as made by her father, a French Chef devotee whose Sundays were often reserved for cooking Child’s creations. “He would stand in line to get her autograph on a cookbook, which I still have,” she tells Vanity Fair.

Tobin grew up in the town of Holliston, located about an hour from the Boston studio where Child filmed her PBS series. “I grew up with Julia on the television every weekend, with parents who really enjoyed food and community,” she says. “Being on a dead-end street in a town with no restaurants, they took to cooking at home for their own sense of enjoyment. They started a group called The Gourmet Club on Pinecrest Road, and every month, they’d get together and cook from various parts of the world.” On Saturdays, Child’s show would air following The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. “I received my early childhood education between the two of them.”

Tobin has amassed an impressive list of films and TV show credits, styling food on Oscar-nominated productions including American Hustle, Little Women, and Don’t Look Up. But it wasn’t until her thirties that she landed the ultimate gig: food stylist on Max’s Julia, which stars Sarah Lancashire as the beloved chef. “Everything just made sense when I landed Julia,” Tobin says on a recent Zoom. There’s only one other current show that can compare: “The Bear. Come on, like C-O-M-E on! You can quote me,” Tobin says of the series, which features work by culinary producer Courtney Storer and executive producer/real-life chef Matty Matheson. “It’s a masterpiece.”

In an early episode of Julia season two, which is now streaming Thursdays on Max, Child proclaims: “If you want to get to know a person, take them out to dinner and watch them eat.” Ahead, a conversation with the woman in charge of setting the table—from her fear of angering French chefs to the famous projects in which she’s cameoed.

Vanity Fair: Julia’s second season has a meta quality, with Julia facing the pressures of making a second season of The French Chef and a new edition of her cookbook. Did you feel those same feelings? What did you learn on the first season that you were eager to build upon?

Christine Tobin: Well, first off, we went immediately on location to France for seven weeks. So I was lucky to have the first season to prep for that. We were lucky to have a lot of the same crew members return for season two. The longer you get to work together in episodic, those bonds between departments and people really strengthen and grow.

Season two I found more ambitious in the food. There isn’t just one person cooking on set, it’s multiples. And so with that comes a lot of planning. While I was in France, I had an assistant here in Boston, Carolyn White, who handled that second unit. I think we only had a week in between landing and starting up again. It just went super smooth, honestly. It’s shocking. I think that comes from working with food professionals and being instinctual about what is to be expected.

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Savannah Walsh

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