(1904–1989)
U.S. editor and book reviewer
Avis DeVoto
You know, it’s funny. By the time we develop real taste in food, and begin to learn how to prepare it, digestive disorders set in and weight piles up. When I think what I could have done in my youth, when I ate like a horse with no bad results at all, with the knowledge I’m getting now, I could cry.
February 27, 1954 letter to Julia Child in As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), 164.
I have always thought it was insane to expect a great big enormous turkey to take all those long extra hours. At some point there is a point of no return, if you know what I mean which I do not myself, but there must be some law that covers it. It has been my experience that all given cooking times for turkey are too long—the best is always done before you plan it.
January 17, 1958 letter to Julia Child in As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), 309.
Thanks again for the knife, which is a little gem. My husband, I regret to say, has snitched it for his own use—cutting the lemon peel the proper thinness for the six o’clock Martini—but it will be mine while he is in California.
April 3, 1952 letter to Julia Child in As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), 9–10.