Some symposium re-caps, especially those of a notable Keynote Speaker are timeless in the valuable messages they contain and like a fine wine perhaps are even best savored at a later time. Life’s lessons, potentially profound ideas once digested serve to offer a certain spirit of inspiration or guidance and this is the dish shared with famed cooking personality, Nathalie Dupree. Honesty and Sage Advice combining humor with entertaining stories in the recipe of life were delivered by Dupree to a standing room only crowd presenting as Keynote Speaker at the annual Philadelphia Le Dames d’ Escoffier event Cuisine, Culture & Community, A Global Celebration of Women and Food at the Restaurant School Walnut Hill in early May.
Credited for putting Southern Cooking on the map of national attention Dupree is also attributed for her influence in expanding the concept of Southern Style Cooking among many restaurants throughout the south including the flourish of Atlanta as a food destination. Dupree, the first woman to film more than a hundred television Cooking Shows for PBS since Julia Child was first introduced to Child following her graduation ceremony at Le Cordon Bleu in London where Dupree received an Advanced Certificate during the time she lived in London with her first husband. Members of Le Cordon Bleu were eager to introduce the two women together being the only Americans in attendance. Dupree now chuckles to think she did not even know who Julia Child was at the time.
Later, Dupree again ran into Julia Child and seized the moment inquiring the same line that many women throughout the country would come to ask Nathalie Dupree repeatedly in years to come, “What should I do with the rest of my life.” Julia Child’s response: “Teach cooking. Open a cooking school. We need cooking schools in America” and Dupree did. Directing Rich’s Cooking School through a Department Store in Atlanta, Nathalie proceeded to instruct upwards of ten thousand students over a ten year period, including many who then went on to open restaurants, catering, or specialty food businesses.
