When visiting the Treasure Coast and its crown jewel, The 1337 Club, we invite you to stop in to the Vero Beach branch of the Lahti Library of Learned Literature - whose Chocolay Township branch, after its recent renovation, now devotes one of its three shelves right of the TV to the most concentrated assortment of classic writers east of, er ... Apartment 319 -  among whose 100+ titles are the 2001 edition, mentioned in the article below, of Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques (Christmas 2024) and Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home: A Cookbook (Christmas 2020), the latter a book version of the most inspired pairing of his-and-her immortals - not for nothing were Julia's initials ... J.C. 🧔 - since Ella and Louis took their turns cooing and belting the Great American Songbook seventy years ago. Don't miss, from Julia's Wiki page, her hair-raising shark-infested Second World War espionage, and, of course, the 1978 episode with Jacques on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, which I think I watched back then, in which a minor cut to her finger inspired the deathless SNL parody, shown by her later with glee to friends, of Grand Guignol Sweeney Todd-meets-Monty-Python gore, at whose close a Dan Aykroyd in drag as Julia gasps her last with the cry, "Save the liver!"

This Classic Cookbook Chefs Swear By Is 50 Years Old
In his groundbreaking “La Technique,” Jacques Pépin showed Americans how to do everything from carving swans out of apples to breaking down lamb.

Don C.
New York City · 
Aug. 6

I've been cooking with Jacques Pepin for over 60 years. At first, I didn't know it. When I was in high school, I got a part-time job at a Howard Johnson's at a turnpike exit in Ohio. I started washing windows, then on to dishwasher and then an assistant to the cook and finally in charge of the kitchen myself for weekend breakfast, lunch and weekday dinners. Little did I know that behind the dishes created for Howard Johnson's at the time was Jacques Pepin (and Pierre Franey.). The amazingly large range of dishes offered at Howard Johnson's really was an uplifting education from what I was getting at home -- like meat loaf, tuna casserole, stuffed peppers, Jello salad and in Cleveland something called "City Chicken." It was at Howard Johnson's that I first tasted REAL butter as opposed to the supposed health food of the era -- margarine. After Howard Johnson's I graduated to the Time-Life series of Foods of the World which included a volume on French cooking, which I believe was partly written by Pepin. And I bought a first edition of La Technique (which I sadly got rid of many years ago). I was fascinated by the photos, but never could imagine replicating it. Then, on to delightful TV appearances, especially with Julia Child. And even today I like to watch Pepin mince an onion -- over and over again. Some of my favorite recipes, now some memorized, came from Pepin. What a great time of cooking and eating that I was able to share with Pepin over the years.

Liz
Boulder ·
Aug. 11

@Don C. What a remarkable collection. This must be why my dim memories of Howard Johnson’s meals are not suffused with a feeling of “Ick”. I wonder if Mr Johnson met personally with Mr Pepin and Mr Franey.

Don C.
New York City ·
Aug. 11


@Liz Oh, yes. Howard Johnson hired the two chefs to upgrade the restaurant's menu. Johnson attended Jacques' wedding. (It's recounted in Jacques' autobiography. For the teenage cooks in the restaurants we served for example "beef burgundy." A single serving came in a plastic bag, frozen. The cooks put the frozen bag in boiling water and when "cooked" it was poured onto a plate. I like the vision of Pepin and Franey making vats of beef burgundy at Howard Johnson's headquarters, packaging individual servings in plastic bags and shipping them around the country (including Ohio) to be served by teenage "chefs." I remember getting compliments sent back to the kitchen from happy customers.
Here is Jacques in 2005, looking back on his American apprenticeship, of almost ten years throughout the 1960s, developing recipes, with his fellow eminent Frenchman Pierre Franey, for Howard Johnson('s).

Kristen (email): I love Jacques. He’s so cute when he explains how to cook on his show.

DSL.: It should come as no surprise that he had a big influence on my own two cooking shows on, if not public television, then private, or pirate, radio, Uncle Scott Chops and Boils Closeout Hot Dogs for You for Lunch When You Give Him 30 Days' Notice You're Coming to Town; What's This Package from China with the Chinese Cleaver? Uncle Scott Shops AliExpress for All Your Five-Dollar Utensils So Your June 25 is His Christmas 2.0 (or 6.25); and, of course, not to forget his self-award-winning classic on dessert from here to the hereafter, Angel Food and Devil's Food: William Blake's Cakes from Heaven and Hell.

Thank you, Jacques: the last slice is, so to speak, on me ... in which case, could you please hand me a napkin?

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