simka and louisette had been doing a book on french cooking for americans and they needed an american collaborator. >> so we did an american view, an american attitude. >> so we started writing our book. >> the goal of the book was to make french cooking for americans with american products so that you could replicate it here. simka, her partner, found that difficult, because simka felt it should only be done the french way regardless. >> simka was a very willful woman. she was very -- no problem in saying, you don't do it like that. no, that's not how you do it. you do it like this. it sounded like orders, like she wanted to regiment everyone, like a police officer. >> simka was not an easy woman. nor was julia. they both had very strong opinions.