Well, we all know that you’re a mom of three enviable children. Or a nurse. Or a grad student with a super-interesting major.

But maybe you’re tired of everybody thinking that’s all you’re about. You wish we’d sit beside you a little longer and ask more questions. Then you could admit that you played accordion in a family band. (Or maybe you don’t want us to know about that.)

Now’s our chance to tell each other something curious about ourselves.

I’ll start: I was a motel maid back in my college days.  A movie crew swept in and rented a bunch of rooms for a month or so. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t shining Kevin Bacon’s mirror. No, we probably housed the gaffers and the 3rd assistants, maybe the stuntmen.

OK, your turn.

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Yep, we never know what gems lurk in our neighbor’s past.

For instance, you’ve probably heard of Julia Child and her French cooking.

And her years as a spy.

Oh, you didn’t know about the spying?

Me neither, until I read Jennet Conant’s A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS.

Julia and Paul worked in the Morale Operations wing of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Posted in Asia, they created radio broadcasts and leaflet drops to mess with the enemy’s mind.

The OSS recruited a grab bag of characters. It helped if you knew languages like Chinese or Malay, or had lived in Asia with your missionary parents. It also helped if you attended an Ivy League school, mostly because that signified you were rich and therefore harder to bribe.

The crew at Morale Operations set themselves up in hotels “once the seat of a certain colonial elegance.” Supplied with plenty of good champagne and tennis, they sat down at their typewriters and got to work.

Oh, there were hardships, too. Rats. Snakes. Flying “over the Hump” (the Himalayas) in junker airplanes that they named “the war wearies.”

Covert follows three storylines:

1) The antics of a rule-bending socialite, Jane Foster;

2) The long-burning crush of the 6’2” Julia McWilliams on the erudite Paul Child; and

3) The post-war inquisition of anybody suspected of Communist sympathies

I’m dying to tell you my favorite tales (Exotic pets! Near misses with guns!) but, no, I won’t spoil things for you.

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After you find Conant’s book, here are some cookies you can munch on while you read. Consider it my contribution to Morale Operations.

 

 

 

Citrus Drop Cookies, an orange-flavored sugar cookie

Cinnamon Crackle Cookies, a brown-sugar snickerdoodle

Cookies ‘n Cream Brownies, no explanation needed