Though considering that by that point Julia had supposedly been working on her book for almost a month, it comes across more as polite conversation and simple curiosity at how the book is progressing more than it does a probe into Julia's background (which would certainly be coming more than a bit late at that point
). And, of course, Liz doesn't exactly get much info. I love how Liz remarks that if Julia is as nimble with the written word as she is the spoken word, she must be an interesting writer because their conversation started out being about Julia but Julia abruptly turned the subject around to Liz. Classic Julia when she wants to avoid something.