“Some people like to
paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people
get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as
creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or woodcarving, or music.”
~Julia Child
If she were still alive, the towering chef and
self-proclaimed ham, who was known for her mastery of French cuisine, would turn a
century old today. She’d still be dancing chicken carcasses along the kitchen
counter, bumbling over her Beef bourguignon and signing off her weekly
cooking show with her signature shrill, ''Bon appétit!''
There is much that makes
me smile when I think of Julia Child.
-
Her love affair with husband Paul Child who was
10 years her senior and several inches shorter than her stately 6’2”.
-
The fact that she did marry until she
was 34 and didn’t learn to cook until several years later.
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Her wacky sense of culinary humor and acceptance of kitchen mistakes as a part of the process. “Always remember: If you're
alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up.
Who's going to know?” said Child.
-
Her devotion to bringing French cuisine to
American culture in what was originally an 800-page mammoth and is now in it’s
edited version the best- seller “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”
-
Her deep appreciation for the art of cooking.
She once said, “Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two
minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.
In a nutshell, Julia Child epitomizes the creative, entrepreneurial feminine spirit – one that was not held back by social norms or physical appearance. Put plainly, she was her own bird.
So Happy Century Julia, and Bon Appétit!
*A few more pithy quotes from the lady of honor:
“I think every woman
should have a blowtorch.”
“The best way to
execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a
chicken.”
