Taste: My Life through Food(42)

After dinner Marcello ordered a digestivo. This consisted of a half a shot of amaro and a half a shot of Fernet-Branca. Jon and I naturally ordered the same. I introduced it to my father and it is still something we drink together to this day. We have of course named it after my oldest and closest friend. Yes, it is called a Marcello.

The next day I told my friends on the film not only how lovely the evening was but also that I had discovered a wonderful, authentic Italian restaurant. A few nights later we all gathered around a table at Romano’s, more than ready for a great meal. However, when the food came there was little about it that resembled anything vaguely related to Italian cuisine. I should have known I was going to be disappointed when I asked the waiter if they had pasta fagioli and he looked at me as if I were mad. I ordered a piece of salmon, which I imagined would be cooked as simply as the lamb chops I had shared just the other night with my best friend in the world, Marcello Mastroianni. Instead I was presented with an overbaked slice of fish that was swimming in cream and covered with a carapace of cheese. Looking at the dishes my friends had ordered, I realized that they were all versions of Italian recipes altered to satisfy the most base of Parisian tastes. It seems that Romano’s stayed in business catering to their clientele’s questionable palates even if it meant denying the delicate, delicious simplicity of their native recipes. Although this is very common (it is in fact the primary plot device in Big Night), and it’s understandable that restaurants do have to make a living, it is always sad to know that in kitchens everywhere around the world many talented chefs are reining in the culinary gifts they have learned from their families in order to accommodate what is the mediocrity of the status quo.

Obviously I never returned to Romano’s, and as far as I can tell they are no longer in business. Sadly, I never saw Marcello Mastroianni again, but I still have the memory of that wonderful night and the piece of paper on which he penned the restaurant’s address, which, as stated in my will, is to be buried with me.


I?(Bob Altman did what he could to help us bring Big Night to fruition, including making an announcement at Cannes one year that he was producing a film called “Pasta Fazool.” Because he hated the title Big Night, he came up with this terrible title, which I think probably did more harm than good. However, although he never ended up seeing the film through as a producer, we remained friends until his death.)





12


Making Nora Ephron’s film Julie & Julia and playing Julia Child’s husband, Paul, to Meryl’s Julia was an honor and a pleasure. As I’ve said, from an early age I was enamored of Julia Child and therefore more than keen to enter the world that Nora so lovingly realized. For certain projects a lot of research is necessary, but it is not always as enjoyable as it was this time around. In this case, I read as much as possible about Julia and Paul, spent time with Paul’s great-nephew the wonderful writer Alex Prud’homme, and, to get a real taste of his life (pun intended and achieved), cooked a number of recipes from my copy of Julia’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking that my mother had given me years ago. (In fact, Meryl and I made blanquette de veau together for Kate and our friend Wren Arthur one night, which surprisingly turned out very well. Although due to disorganization and poor planning, we served dinner two hours later than intended. I blame the star of the film.)

Paul Child was a fascinating man. He was an expert in judo, a painter, and a photographer (although he only had the use of one eye due to a childhood accident); spoke fluent French; worked in the OSS (the precursor to the CIA) in Sri Lanka, where he met Julia; and eventually became a member of the American diplomatic corps after the Second World War, working as a cultural liaison in France, Germany, and Norway. He was as voracious a reader as he was an eater, and therefore had an extensive knowledge of countless subjects. During their time abroad Paul encouraged Julia to study cooking and eventually take those skills to television when they returned to live in the US, in the early 1960s. Retired at this point, he supported her behind the scenes, carrying her kitchen kit from studio to studio, helping with prep work, and washing pots and pans at the end of the day as well as illustrating and taking photos for her cookbooks. In short, he was a very advanced fella for his time and one of the most interesting people I’ve had the pleasure of playing. The entire experience was only made better by Nora, Meryl, and the convivial atmosphere on set. As I may have alluded to in previous pages, this is a rather rare occurrence.

That conviviality remained when we were reunited over a year later for our press tour. To kick it off, President and Michelle Obama chose Julie & Julia to be the first film shown in the White House screening room when he was first elected, an event to which we were all thrilled to be invited. When we arrived, the president and the First Lady greeted us and could not have been more charming as we tried our best not to gush all over them. After a little chitchat, President Obama left to attend to some affair of some state while Mrs. Obama and the rest of us went to the small White House screening room to watch the film. We knew in that moment that no matter where we subsequently went on the remainder of the press tour, this would be a tough act to follow. However, there was one other experience that was also very notable but for distinctly different reasons.

There’s a little restaurant slightly inland from the Normandy coast, the name of which I can’t remember, and that’s probably a good thing. This is where Meryl, Chris Messina, and I found ourselves one afternoon as we were heading from Deauville to Paris. We had been promoting Julie & Julia at the Deauville film festival, which is one of my favorites because it is a very relaxed affair, unlike most of the other major festivals. At Deauville there is a fair amount of the usual repetitive press interviews to be done as well as a few photo shoots (always painful), but screenings take place only during the day, hence the evenings and nights are for the most part one’s own. Guests will stay at the Hotel Barrière Le Royal with a view of the seemingly endless beaches made famous by the painter Boudin over a century ago. The air is fresh; the skies are blue until they suddenly turn a deep gray and let loose a dramatic thunderstorm, making the whole experience quite romantic. The festival and the setting are a film lover’s and a filmmaker’s dream. The location is a food lover’s dream.