This poem by Paul Child was published on Julia’s 49th birthday. See if you can find the lines that might have surprised you, if you were a reader of the Seventeen Magazine in which it was originally published:
Birthday 1961
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! And yet
It is your bottom satisfies my taste buds beyond measure.– http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3850087