Hundreds of recipes. Eleven cookbooks. Two letters to Julia Child. Santa Barbara chef Pascale Beale is a prolific author and food columnist—with upcoming book signing events in Solvang and Los Alamos—who put pen to paper in a different way after learning she didn’t live far from a culinary icon.
“I was very fortunate to know her the last five years of her life,” Beale said about Child, who passed away in 2004 in Montecito. “We became friends. I cooked for her many, many times. … It all started because I sent her a thank you note, for just being her.”
At the time, Beale had just cured some olives, which she decided to jar and pair with her thank you note to Child.
“I dropped it off where she lived, and I honestly did not expect a response at all,” said Beale, who left the olive jar and note on Child’s doorstep.
About a month later, Beale received a typed letter—a thank you note for the thank you note—from Child, who wrote that the olives were delicious.
“I was so stunned, I mean, I was astonished that she took the time,” Beale said. “I know this sounds nuts, but I sent her a thank you for the thank you. … I wrote another card, and I had just made an apricot jam—my favorite jam, which I had learned to make with my grandmother.”
A week after she dropped off the note and jam, Beale got another thank you card from Child. The two pen pals started hanging out in person not long after that, when Beale asked Child out to lunch.
“She said yes, and I went and picked her up, and that was the beginning of our having meals together … every three or four weeks,” Beale said. “She was marvelous. She had a great sense of humor, and I really treasured that friendship and being able to spend time with her.”
Guests of Beale’s upcoming book tour events—held in conjunction with the November release of her new Mediterranean-style cookbook, Flavour—can look forward to hearing more anecdotes from Beale about her culinary adventures and those who played key roles in her career trajectory.
Born in London and raised in both England and France, Beale attributes some of her earliest cooking experiences to spending time in the kitchen with her French grandmother.
“My mother’s mother was a fabulous cook. If you open Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child’s book, basically all the food in that book is the food my grandmother made,” Beale recalled. “That’s how she cooked—very traditional French cooking.”
One of Beale’s favorite dishes her grandmother introduced her to was a French grated carrot salad—one of the stepping stones on her path toward a passion for salads and plant-based meals.
Beale’s latest cookbook, Flavour, includes around 150 recipes, which are primarily plant-based. The book highlights the taste, textures, and colors of more than 90 fruits, vegetables, herbs, and other produce.
Speaking of herbs, ticket holders for Beale’s author event and lunch—at Buttonwood Farm and Vineyard in Solvang on Sunday, Nov. 24, at 11:30 a.m.—will receive a sachet of a new autumn herb blend available from Pascale’s Kitchen, Beale’s Santa Barbara boutique that hosts culinary classes and sells unique cookware and pantry goods, such as herb blends, olive oils, and balsamic vinegars.
Priced at $65, admission to the Buttonwood reception also includes a copy of Flavour and a light lunch paired with a glass of wine. Beale’s schedule in late November and early December is full of similar book tour events along the Central Coast and beyond.
“I don’t think I’ve ever done this many events in such a short period of time,” Beale said with a laugh.
Some of the gatherings are ticketed, while others are free to attend, such as Beale’s upcoming talk at Clementine Carter Wines in Los Alamos on Friday, Nov. 22, at 5:30 p.m. During a conversation with winemaker and host Sonja Magdevski, Beale will go over the creation of her new book and reflect on her two-decade career in teaching.
This year marks her 25th as an instructor, as she started Pascale’s Kitchen in 1999.
“In 25 years, I’ve never taught the same class twice,” Beale revealed. “Developing recipes for all of these classes has meant that I’ve never repeated a menu.”
Send secret ingredients to Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 14-24, 2024.