Julia Child's known for bringing classic French cooking to suburban America, showing people how to make Beef Bourguignon and Moules à la Marinière (AKA steamed mussels in white wine), but she had one delightfully lowbrow guilty pleasure almost everyone can relate to: a love of hot dogs. Specifically, Costco hot dogs.
The late chef routinely made trips to the buy-in-bulk megastore, and she'd end every visit with a trip to the snack bar, former Bon Appetit editor-in-chief Barbara Fairchild told Lucky Peach. Each time, she'd order a hot dog, which she reportedly loved "as much as a fine French meal." (She has that in common with the company's CEO, Craig Jelinek. He orders a plain hot dog every day for lunch when he's traveling.) Child would sit under the Santa Barbara store's umbrellas outside, taking a snack break with her most recent grocery haul.
Turns out that wasn't the only thing Child loved about Costco. She told Fairchild the chain had the best meat selection around. "She was particularly enthusiastic about the steaks — they were the ones she would always use if she was entertaining," the food editor recalled in Lucky Peach's Summer 2017 issue.
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In fact, it's that anecdote that many people loved most about Child; the fact that time and again, no matter how famous she got or how revered her recipes were, she was as down-to-earth as your childhood best friend. "She was so very unphony," recalled Caroline Bates, a former food reviewer for Gourmet. "So many in the food world are phony."
So, if you really want to get your Julie & Julia on, you might as well head to Costco, load up on enough beef to serve a high school graduating class, then down a hot dog to help you power through all that bourginon-ing. Maybe try a chicken bake when you're there too.
COOK LIKE JULIA: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, $22, amazon.com.
Candace Braun Davison writes, edits, and produces lifestyle content that ranges from celebrity features to roll-up-your-sleeves DIYs, all while relentlessly pursuing the noblest of causes: the quest for the world's best chocolate chip cookie.
