‘Whose Unsurpassed Quenelles’

Julia Child, who died last week just a few days before her 92nd birthday, turned out to have a Montclair connection. She married a Montclair boy, Paul Cushing Child.
Montclair resident Myra Binstock managed to dig up a “slightly salty love poem” that Child wrote for his chef-wife in 1961. About 40 years too early for Montclair Unmoderated’s Friday poem-fest, but we”ll run with it anyway.

O Julia, Julia, cook and nifty wench,
Whose unsurpassed quenelles and hot souffles,
Whose English, Norse, and German, and whose French,
Are all beyond my piteous powers to praise-
Whose sweetly rounded bottom and whose legs
Whose gracious face, whose nature temperate,
Are only equalled by her scrambled eggs:
Accept from me, your ever-loving mate,
This acclamation shaped in fourteen lines
Whose inner truth belies its outer sight;
For never were there foods, nor were there wines
Whose flavor equals yours for sheer delight.
O luscious dish! O gustatory pleasure!
You satisfy my taste buds beyond measure.