Julia Child has died. Another icon of my youth has passed on. Julia was my first cooking instructor.
When I was a teen, my mom would sometimes leave something defrosting in the sink for when I got home from school and leave me instructions to cook it for dinner. After some fits and starts, I began watching Julia Child after school, learning all those tips and techniques that most cooks take for granted. By the end of high schoolrut, encouraging us to experiment with the whole variety of the world’s cuisines.
“Dining with one’s friends and beloved family is certainly one of life’s primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal,” she said in the introduction to her seventh book, “The Way to Cook.” “In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal.”
Rest in peace.
I will pray for her. I loved her show.
She made the formerly uncommon commonplace. Great cookbooks and a lively spirit. God bless her and hopefully Heaven dines well for the day.
Asked once what her ideal meal would be, Julia replied, ” Red meat and a bottle of gin.” She was one Hell of a fun broad.
She was the best. Godspeed, Julia.
I haven’t seen the news today and just read this notice for the first time here. It makes me very sad too. Julia Child was really a crypto-Catholic in her anti-Manichaean celebration of God’s gift to man of great food and wine. One of my best memories is seeing her at a demonstration in Cambridge, where she had problems getting the portable burner hot enough, but muddled through with grace and good humor, as she always did. A great woman whose long life was the source of happiness for many other people. God bless her.
The anti-Martha Stewart. My favorite Julia story: She’s showing how to cook a turkey—wrestling a monster bird from the counter to the oven. In the course of getting it there, she drops it, right onto the floor.
She shrugs, puts the bird back into the pan and shoves it into the oven.
She looks at the camera and smiles.
“Remember: it’s your kitchen, and they’ll never know the difference.”
God rest her wonderful soul.
I wonder what her first dinner party in Heaven will have on the menu…
My memory of the ever-pragmatic Julia, while not as funny as the “red meat and gin” and “turkey” tales above, is when she was cooking a dish that called for cognac. She said, “And, if you don’t have any cognac, well, then, just leave out the cognac.”
St. Peter wants a second helping of that Coquilles St. Jacques, Julia. Is there any left?