Julia Child Class Frosting On Vacation

It’s a pretty fine vacation when you get to watch Julia Child take a blowtorch to a mixing bowl.

Nancy L. White, a South Hill resident, saw just that and more when she spent a week at La Varenne cooking school at The Greenbrier, a world-class resort in White Sulfer Springs, W.Va.

She watched the 80-something doyenne who popularized French cuisine in America torch ingredients that weren’t warming fast enough to suit her.

It’s not as drastic as it sounds, however. That’s a technique taught to quickly caramelize ingredients in desserts such as burnt creme.

It was also an illustrative lesson for White on Child’s attitude in the kitchen.

“What I learned from Julia Child was, if you have a disaster in the kitchen, don’t apologize for it,” White said. “Do the best you can and enjoy your guests.”

Child lived her “no-apologies” credo when her flourless cake stuck to the pan. Child’s assistant left out a step or two of grease-flour-parchment, grease-flour-parchment, and the cake came out in pieces.

“She didn’t get upset,” White reports. “Totally unruffled.”

Child then iced and piped the recalcitrant dessert and served it.

White observed the legend from a few feet away during Child’s three-hour demonstration. It was the highlight of White’s week at the famed school.

The trip was a reward of sorts after White closed her business, Threadworks, on Mullan Road in the Spokane Valley. She’d also recently retired from a 20-year career in teaching, which included two years at Libby Middle School.

The trip capped White’s lifelong love of cooking.

While Child’s appearance at the school was only a small portion of the week, White made the most of it. She was one of only a few who asked Child a question.

White asked Child her opinion of Baker’s Joy, a flour-in-spray shortening that Rosauers on 29th stocked at White’s request.

“She didn’t think too much of it,” White laughed.

Anne Willan, notable for her “Look and Cook” program on PBS, directed the 21-event, six-day program, which also starred Honolulu chef Alan Wong and others.

“We had a 300-pound pastry chef teach us low-fat desserts,” White said. “I wasn’t convinced he was sincere.”

The big man confessed how much butter and cream to add to make each dessert really good.

Demonstrations were held during the day with hands-on classes at night. White’s longest day stretched 12 hours, ending with her cooking in one of two huge kitchens in an underground bunker built in the 195Os by the government to house up to 1,500 people in the event of nuclear attack.

Above ground, White experienced The Greenbrier’s elegance.

“It’s all the stuff you read about in the etiquette books but very rarely encounter,” she said.

In Spokane, White lives on the bluff overlooking Thor in one of four “Wild Bob’s Condorama and Ranchettes” with her husband, Joe.

Free from daily chores managing her business, she’s designing and making one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry using gems, stones, beads and unusual threads.

And she’s cooking, with Julia in mind.

“It’s been a significant year for me,” she said, “and it was inspiring to see how active and creative a woman in her 80s could be.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo