HOW TO MAKE ROASTED NUTS

Julia Childs inspired me to make roasted nuts for the first time.

Watching the dramedy titled Julia about Julia Childs inspired me to try one of her recipes. With plans to buy Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I thought it would be fun to make Julia Child’s Roast chicken recipe. But that would have required a trip to the grocery store and I told myself I should buy her a cookbook before diving into a raw chicken.

ROASTED NUTS FOR PECANS, WALNUTS, ALMONDS

HOW (NOT) TO MAKE ROASTED NUTS

Also, I only had the ingredients to make honey-roasted pecans. So in honor of Julia, I made roasted pecans. Roasted pecans are the perfect accent to a summer salad.

I took photos. In hindsight, the photos should have been a clue of how a three-ingredient recipe can go sideways if I am in the kitchen.

Sitting at the kitchen counter on a pre-dawn morning I wrote a homemade recipe for honey-roasted pecans. I started with a confident title

THREE-INGREDIENT HONEY-ROASTED PECANS.

And as my fingers danced around the keyboard as I typed the word p-e-c-a-n-s in the title I thought that’s not right…

I used walnuts.

And It gets better…

I made this recipe twice.

I burned the first batch of toasted walnuts.

And that is how I screwed up a 3 ingredient recipe. But after watching the HBO Julia Child’s limited series, with a familiar cast, I thought about how Julia would have counseled me. My version goes something like this: Mrs. Childs’swould has pulled me in for a generous hug, leaned down (she was over 6′ tall) and whispered in my year, and told me to start with the Better Homes & Garden Cookbook.

Or maybe she might have suggested I start with this cookbook that includes a recipe on how to boil an egg.

Maybe I should stick to this family-favorite pecan roll recipe.