Gestures also came with her response to animal lovers picketing the TV studio when a show featured the most humane way to cook lobster. The next morning Mrs. Child was a general session panelist with two other cookbook indexers. One thing led to another and she remarked that an index of cookbook indexes was a good idea. Later, someone else in the audience asked how Mrs. Child and her husband came to index their first cookbook themselves. We didn't have any idea some people did it for a living.
Authors have much more power than they think.
To fulfill her patriotic duty during World War II, Julia Child went to D.C. and became a file clerk in the bowels of an unnamed bureaucracy. There she developed an appreciation for what could be found or hidden by manipulating the alphabet, an experience that also convinced her that indexers possess great power. Besides a press conference ASI arranged with her in Old Salem Village, Julia Child also volunteered to autograph more books poolside after Saturday's lunch. Alexandra cannot be thanked enough for planning ASI's 29th conference around Julia Child. It was a meeting to remember for a very long time.