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The Cookbook Store > Chefs > Julia Child |
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The Cookbook Store > Chefs > Julia Child |
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Alison Fryer with the legendary Julia Child. |
Julia Child, the culinary touchstone for so many of us, died in her sleep on Thursday, August 12th, 2004 three days before her 92nd birthday.
Her achievements are well-known: the books beginning with Mastering the Art of French Cooking that enabled legions of home cooks to prepare dishes previously left to chefs: her tireless promotion of French and American food, including co-founding the American Institute of Food and Wine. Beyond the food world, she was an enthusiastic supporter of liberal causes.
Although she did not have children of her own, she always had time for younger member of the food community - and at her age younger meant anyone form Jacques Pepin, Alice Waters, Patricia Wells on down to the lowliest line cook toiling in an unsung restaurant in the middle of nowhere.
We were honoured to host book signings with Julia four times over the course of a decade. The first was on a rather misty autumn morning: the lineup of eager fans began before six. Our manager, Alison accompanied Julia the two blocks from her hotel at the other end of the street to our shop. For Alison it was as though she were walking with royalty, and in a way she was.
Heads turned, there were whispers as passersby realized with whom they were sharing the sidewalk. As the pair approached the waiting fans, the whispers rose to a crescendo a ripple moved down, then back up the line as Julia passed. Someone started to clap, the rest joined it.
Unlike many other celebrities whose on screen persona is at great remove from their true selves, with Julia what you saw was what she was. She was an authentic person. She was an endlessly patient person, always kind with her fans whether they became tongue-tied or turned into blithering idiots in her presence. No matter how long the lineup, Julia was always willing to pose for a picture with anyone bearing her books. If books were falling apart and splashed upon the more she loved it.
Even after retreating to a retirement community in Santa Barbara, Julia stayed involved, curious to the end. Her assistant, quoted in the New York Times, summed it up best: "She lived until she died."
My Life in France
Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
It was exquisitely simple sole meuniere that changed both the life of one woman
and the course of North American cuisine. In her newly published memoir, Julia
Child traces her love affair with everything French, particularly the food, from
that day in November, 1948 through the labour of love that became Mastering
the Art of French Cooking to her final visit in June, 1992. Though written
with her great nephew, Alex Prud'homme, it is Julia herself whose words make
this memoir so vivid that one can hear her glorious, rumbling trill in every
paragraph.
Read a review of My Life in France by The Cookbook Store's Jennifer Grange.
The French
Chef Cookbook, 1998 (reprint 2002), $23.00
Mastering the Art of French Cooking (with Simone Beck & Louise Berthold), 1961 (reprint 2001), $60.00
Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, 2000, $29.95
Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home (with Jacques Pepin), 1999, $62.00
Baking With Julia (with Dorie Greenspan), 1996, $29.95
In Julia's Kitchen With Master Chefs, 1995, $49.00
The Way To Cook, 1989 (reprint 1995), $90.00/$59.95
Cooking With Master Chefs, 1994, $24.00
From Julia Child's Kitchen, 1982, $19.98
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