Half a Degree of Separation to Meryl Streep

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Did you have any idea when you were watching this beautiful and talented woman win an Academy Award last night that there was only half a degree of separation between you and Meryl Streep?

Some people go to Europe for Junior Year Abroad, but in the fall of 1970 I went to New Hampshire. I was part of an exchange between women's colleges and men's colleges "in advance of coeducation." At the time it wasn't clear that there would be coeducation, although now the thought seems somewhere out of Victorian times. It was the second year of this experiment and there were 70 "coeds" and 3,000 men of Dartmouth. During fall term both Meryl Streep and I were part of the 70 coeds. I'm not sure we exchanged more than a hello, but with such a small number of women I recognized all of the women and Meryl was a standout, even as a college senior. She was beautiful and profoundly talented and it came as no surprise that she has had an award-winning career.

I loved my year at Dartmouth. Yes, the social life was fun, but it wasn't just parties. The academics were superlative and I made some great friends. I liked Dartmouth so well that in the last decade I've returned for three alumni summer weeks and had a wonderful time. As for the experiment in coeducation, by the following fall (1971) the trustees of Dartmouth voted to permit women to matriculate and the first coed class graduated in 1973. Alas, one year too late for me.

The only downside to Dartmouth was the weather. There were January days when it was thirty degrees below zero, and we didn't factor in wind chill in 1971. Twenty degrees was a warm day! Still it is one of the most beautiful places I know.

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Hanover, New Hampshire: the most Quintessential New England place 

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Wishes for a sweet and happy evening! 

"Julie and Julia"

When I visited Washington in March I saw Julia Child's kitchen at the Museum of American History. I was so taken with it that I even blogged about it and posted one of the photos above. Tonight I went with my friend, Mary to see "Julie and Julia" which is both about how Julia Child came to write "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and how Julie Powell of Queens, NY (the neighborhood near my office) wrote a blog about cooking all the recipes in "Mastering the Art..." in a year.

I loved it! It's about food (and extraordinary food), Paris, blogging, New York and stars one of my favorite actresses, Meryl Streep, who is extraordinary as Julia Child. It's also about finding the thing in life you love to do and doing it with joy and passion. And dear readers, it was filmed at Silvercup Studio, which I wrote about earlier this week.

In the one degree of separation...Meryl Streep and I overlapped for one semester in college. I spent my junior year at one of the men's colleges that was thinking of going coeducational -- and did the next year -- and Meryl was there the year before I got there and my first semester. We didn't know each other, but there were only 70 there, so I pretty much knew who the women were and even then she was an outstanding actress and very beautiful. It came as no surprise when she was starring in movies a decade later.

And my only experience cooking from "Mastering the Art..." came one Thanksgiving. In a total break from tradition a friend suggested we cook goose stuffed with prunes and foie gras. It took hours and involved such actions as stuffing the prunes with foie gras, intricate and labor intensive. The result was delicious, but very rich. I have happily returned to turkey in the years since.

Wishing you all, dear gentle readers, joy in all that you do.