Alumni Association University of Michigan Winter 2010 : Page 31Sara Moulton, ’81 As a student in Michigan’s Residential College, Sara Moulton toyed with numerous careers: doctor, lawyer, medical illustrator. Nothing clicked—except at her job at the now-closed Del Rio. She waitressed, then worked in the kitchen. “I really learned a lot about cooking there,” Moulton says. “I learned how to make soup there.” Meanwhile, her concerned mother, Elizabeth Moulton, stepped in. She wrote to legendary food figures Craig Claiborne and Julia Child to ask what her daughter should do to become a chef. Claiborne wrote back—Moulton still has the letter, which is like getting beginning acting advice from Meryl Streep—and at his suggestion, she applied to the Culinary Institute of America. She would graduate second in a class of 450. Sara Moulton on public television’s “Sara’s Weeknight Meals,” one of the shows she hosted. Moulton would like to return to TV. Moulton and I met at Cookshop, a farm- to-table restaurant in New York City. We swapped plates so I could try her garlicky pasta with clams while she sampled my pizza with blue cheese, pears and walnuts. Sharing “Of course I lied and said, ‘Yes, I’m very good,’” Moulton recalls. She bluffed her way through the presentation of Child’s dishes and began a 25-year friendship. “I learned so much from her not just about cooking, but about life.” “I learned so much from her not just about cooking, but about life.” food feels comfortable with the unpretentious Moulton, who peppers her speech with colorful language and for whom no topic seems off limits. She talked openly about topics ranging from the challenges of losing her job at Gourmet after 25 years—the paperwork for her health care and 401(k), looking for a job in a down economy with a Manhattan mortgage—to her delayed graduation from Michigan. She should have graduated in 1974, but didn’t finish her thesis until 1975 and didn’t actually apply to graduate until 1981. Food Network fans probably know Moulton as one of the channel’s first stars. But even as she hosted both “Cooking Live” and “Cooking Live Primetime” on the Food Network, she ran Gourmet’s dining room, hosting advertising clients, running cooking demonstrations and testing recipes. After years working in numerous kitchens, Moulton ended up getting her start in TV thanks to Julia Child. She says her co-worker at a catering company in Massachusetts oversold her skills to Child, who offered Moulton not a volunteer gig but a job. Moulton impersonated Child’s phone call, “Oh dearie, I’ve heard all about you and I hear you do food styling.” Working with Child helped Moulton get a behind-the-scenes job at “Good Morning America,” where eventually she moved on camera. Shortly thereafter, she got an audition for the fledgling Food Network, which she was sure she botched. “I left and I thought, that’s it, my TV career is over,” Moulton says. Lately Moulton is on a crusade: “My mission is to get middle America cooking again.” When her PBS series, “Sara’s Weeknight Meals,” was running, it built on the easy-to-prepare recipes in her second book, “Sara’s Secrets for Weeknight Meals.” She was on a photo shoot for her forthcoming “Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners” when she heard about Gourmet closing. She practices what she preaches. Moulton says her family eats at home five nights a week, with favorite dishes including chicken or pork in a pan sauce with wine and garlic, simplified risotto that only adds broth twice instead of continuously, and fried rice as a vehicle for any leftovers. She doesn’t have a show right now, but would love to get back on television, as it gives her the opportunity to teach. “I probably should have gone to school to be a teacher,” she says. Michigan Alumnus • Winter 2010 • umalumni.com | 31 Publication List |
