A Tale of Two Kitchens: How ‘Julia’ Crafted Lavish Cooking Scenes in the White House and the South of France
variety.comPat Saperstein Deputy Editor There might be more kitchens in Max’s series “Julia” than in every Nancy Meyers movie put together.
The list starts with the kitchen at Julia Child’s home in Cambridge, Mass. — so iconic it’s preserved at the Smithsonian. Then there’s the WGBH set where she films “The French Chef,” her friend Avis DeVoto’s period house, the modest apartment kitchenette of her young producer Alice Naman (Brittany Bradford) — and notably in Season 2, the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, Simone Beck’s rustic Provence cuisine and finally, the White House’s massive catering facility.
Production designer Patrizia von Brandenstein and culinary consultant Christine Tobin returned for the second season to build out several more sets and showcase dishes including loup en croûte, fried chicken and shrimp ‘n grits — not to mention lobster a l’américaine, which necessitated bringing lobster wranglers on set to monitor their happiness. “They were very well taken care of,” says Tobin, who explains that productions are not allowed to show lobsters being boiled alive onscreen. “You know if you follow the logic of the story, in fact, this is a show about kitchens, and aboutthe comfort and the challenge of them,” says von Brandenstein, an Oscar winner for “Amadeus.” Tobin and von Brandenstein detailed how they crafted the extravagant meals and varied kitchens for season 2 of “Julia,” which stars Sarah Lancashire as the pioneering TV chef and David Hyde Pierce as her patient husband Paul Child. Shooting the White House special For the episode depicting Julia Child’s White House TV special, which aired in 1968, the production crew searched for a suitable location for the White House kitchen all over Boston, finally finding a.
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