By Sharon Latour

I have a really, really good excuse for not realizing my dear mom wasn't a great cook. I was really, really young. Comparing notes with girlhood friends, even the mom who was a Home Economics major in college wasn't cooking. She also had four kids to raise.

Tater Tots, frozen fish sticks, Rice-a-Roni (”The San Francisco treat” was a catchy slogan; though the trolley car bell was irritating), T.V. dinners, iceberg lettuce-only salads, and much overcooked meat, were standard fare from house to house in my neck of the woods. Not much in the way of dessert -especially if it had to be prepared (heated) in any fashion.

Now, I'm not trying to be mean. This only just occurred to me as I re-watched the very clever, “Julie and Julia” movie with Merle Streep.

Heavily based on “My Life in France” by Julia Child and set right after WW II with Julia learning to cook via the “French Methode,” it's a very entertaining Nora Ephron creation.

And memories came flooding back.

I was utterly hooked on cooking shows like “The French Chef,” with Julia Child and “The Galloping Gourmet,” with Graham Kerr, who generally wound up inebriated by the end of his shows (all those “short slurps” added up, as he was cooking away.)

I don't remember what he cooked; I just remember being mesmerized by his complete personal transformation in under 30 minutes. On live television.

I'm re-watching the original “French Chef” episodes courtesy of my Netflix subscription. Julia Child was an original, and I miss her. She finished her long and amazing life living 10 minutes from where I grew up in Santa Barbara. So “we” claimed her as our own.

”My Life in France” is a fabulous book. It's as much about her American life in Paris as her incredible, Herculean effort to get published. I highly recommend it.

But back to mom's cooking: all our moms' cooking. I wonder if it hurt my mother's feelings that I was glued to the TV during The French Chef; that I might figure out that Tater Tots and TV dinners probably weren't real food.

Well, God rest her beautiful soul, her eldest is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, which eventually contained 5 other demanding and much brighter cherubs; I only recently realized the chasm between Julia and us.

I only recently noticed what Julia was trying to offer was wonderful food through do-able preparation by anyone. That good cooking didn't have to be like rare and expensive art: everyone could enjoy it and even do it themselves. At least that's what she thought she was doing.

But then there's the duck. In “Julie and Julia,” much is made about young and frustrated author Julie's worry, as she makes every single recipe in Julia's “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” in a year, blogging the whole experience for the world to admire (and pay her for film rights at the conclusion.) Eventually, she has to bone a duck.

And my very first Netflix, “The French Chef,” disc contained an episode on boning a duck. I have no desire to ever, ever, bone a duck so I can eat the skin wrapped around stuff “my people” generally tossed at Thanksgiving before cooking the turkey. You have to see it to believe it: Julia relished doing (and eating) even that.

So here's what I think most moms thought in the 1960s, trying to cope with the upstart, childless (meaning undistracted by anyone other than her doting husband), Julia Child. Unintentionally, Julia made it harder for our mothers. A lot harder.

So, mom, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by watching cooking shows with such rapt attention. Trust me, I was never making comparisons.

I loved the crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, Tater Tots, and I loved making the most complicated side dish we ever had for dinner: The San Francisco treat. I always loved looking at the box and looking forward to our next family trip to the Bay Area.

I guess the bottom line for me is to offer a huge “thank you” to all the mothers and fathers (and grandmas and grandpas and uncles and aunts) who fed us growing up. Unlike too many children, we never went hungry or worried about it.

Thanks for doing the best you could (I mean, we're still here!), and putting up with unintended insults or lack of gratitude along the way. Embarrassingly, it takes some of us over half a century to even notice our inappreciation. Shalom!

Sharon is pastor of the Garberville Community Presbyterian Church. Worship is at 10:30 a.m. every Sunday. Children's Sunday School is offered during the service. Comments or questions should be addressed to: Dr. Sharon Latour, c/o A Pastor's Perspective, P.O. Box 65, Garberville, 95542. Phone: 923-3295.