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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Julia Child Dressed by Someone Else for a Change & Dead at 91
2004-08-14
Famed chef helped popularize edible food fine cuisine in America
Julia Child, who revolutionized cooking in the United States with her cooking school, cookbooks and television shows, has died, according to a statement from her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. She was 91. Child died at her home in Santa Barbara, California, according to the release.

Years before any jerkoff halfwit television chef said "bam," Child was on public television instructing Americans in a warbling voice and a mischievous manner how to prepare everything from omelets to sweetbreads to coq au vin. She loved food and loved the camaraderie that came with it. "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." Indeed, she worried that food crazes and diets got in the way of enjoying a good repast. "What's dangerous and discouraging about this era is that people really are afraid of their food," she told The Associated Press in 1989. "Sitting down to dinner is a trap, not something to enjoy. People should take their food more seriously. Learn what you can eat and enjoy it thoroughly." Child was born in Pasadena, California, on August 15, 1912, to an upper-middle-class family that employed a cook. According to her biographer, she barely knew how to do more than boil water when she graduated from Smith College in 1934 with a degree in history. Child, who was 6-foot-2, intended to be either a novelist or a basketball player.

Creating a 'masterpiece'
During World War II she served with the Office of Strategic Services (an agency that later became the CIA), first in Washington, then in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and China.
Little known to most people, Julia Child distinguished herself in the OSS with a flair for organizing and making usable the large quantities of random information that arrived at the Ceylon intelligence bureau. A later assignment in pre-communist China cemented her nascent interest in food preparation. All of this was a world apart from her cushy upbringing in Pasadena and these early foreign posts were fraught with hardship and risks.
Posted by:Zenster

#14  Tonight, at the Casa de Loco en Tejas, we had grilled center-cut pork chops, mixed green salad with ALL the fixin's, guac ('nough said), pico de gallo, real corn bread (think lard) and home made tortilla chips.

I can feel my arteries hardenin'! But I will die happy. God speed Julia, I learned a LOT from you!

CiT
Posted by: CiT   2004-08-14 11:01:35 PM  

#13  Julia Child also had something to do with the invention of shark repellant during her OSS days.
Posted by: Pappy   2004-08-14 10:34:07 PM  

#12  Class is Class,nice is Nice, good is Good, and Knowledge is King ......She had them all.
Posted by: dorf   2004-08-14 9:49:24 PM  

#11  When asked how she outlived so many of the people who criticized the "unhealthiness" of her cooking she replied, "Maybe they didn't eat enough red meat".

While I was reading Noel Riley Fitch's biography of this venerable dame, it was difficult not to howl out loud with laughter as Fitch chronicled the suicide of a woman who authored (I believe) "The Blender Cookbook."

I cannot possibly convey how outrageous hilarious it is to see people at the supermarket racking up $100-$200 grocery bills buying minuscule sized frozen food portions that effectively cost the same per pound as a fine New York strip steak. I do my best to steer people away from crap like the mono & diglyceride laden "ultra-pasteurized" whipping cream, and instead point them towards the real thing. It's always funny to see their neurons fire for a change eyes widen as I point out how what I buy has only one ingredient, i.e., CREAM.

If you ever want to have a laugh-riot, watch the episode of "Yan Can Cook" where he invites Jaques Pepin to appear. Pepin proceeds to take a dressed whole chicken and convert it into a completely boned out barrontine (sp?) in less than three minutes. Watching Yan STFU and stare for just once was more than worth the price of admission.
Posted by: Zenster   2004-08-14 9:31:00 PM  

#10  Actually Julia introduced Emeril on her show several years back. It was funny to see a clip of Emeril talking so... well... PBS/NPR-like.
Posted by: eLarson   2004-08-14 8:44:03 PM  

#9  Oh, time to start the grill.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck   2004-08-14 6:36:56 PM  

#8  When asked how she outlived so many of the people who criticized the "unhealthiness" of her cooking she replied, "Maybe they didn't eat enough red meat". Eat well, live well for we do all die.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck   2004-08-14 6:14:38 PM  

#7  I'm with Zenster; Atkins can go Leahy hisself.
Posted by: Raj   2004-08-14 3:04:14 PM  

#6  nicely said, Zen
Posted by: Frank G   2004-08-14 3:03:59 PM  

#5  If butter, eggs, flour and salt --in short, Taste--don't disappear from the national diet, it's largely due to her influence.

That's something we can agree upon, Jen. Even a Japanese born sushi chef I once knew freely admitted that it was impossible to cook most foods without using butter. To paraphrase one of my heroes, Jaques Pepin;

"You starve yourself constantly for years so you can do what, die thin?"

Breaking bread with friends (or strangers) will forever remain one of the most vital and pure forms of engagement available to humans. Whether I'm hovering over my vintage double oven O'keefe & Merritt or putzing around a campfire, few are the complaints I receive when chowtime comes. It is more than easy to trace back my love of fine food and cooking to watching "The French Chef" as a youth.

In the hurly burly of modern life, far too many people have lost (or never gained) the knack for cooking and, as is often the case, entertaining company at home as well. A huge number of modern society's malaises are directly connected to this fundamental breakdown in civility.

Julia Child masterfully helped to stem the rising tide of Velveeta and Spam that threatened to wash over America's collective palette in an oleagenous cascade of congealed food manufacturing byproducts. It is impossible to overstate the importance of her insistence upon eating what you enjoy. The continuous parade of fad diets and obsessive mania over caloric intake bespeak a nation so fixated upon the superficial that anorexia and bulemia are now common vocabulary. I, for one, am profoundly grateful that this gracious doyen of distinctive dining bravely fought that onslaught with tooth and carving knife. It certainly made my life one well lived and it is impossible to imagine doing without the conviviality of cooking an eight course dinner for good friends. Thank you, Julia, may you rest in peace.
Posted by: Zenster   2004-08-14 2:55:26 PM  

#4  A good one she will be missed.
She was Oh So Secret from Day One, I once saw her do an 11 on a little Czech. I'll miss her, I mean if she's really gone of course... you never can tell with these tall Smithys, you may trust me on that.
I would not be too surprised to see an additional blue star show up in the atrium.
Posted by: Col Flagg   2004-08-14 1:09:00 PM  

#3  Guess Zenster's not an Emeril fan, eh?
Posted by: Raj   2004-08-14 12:39:10 PM  

#2  Who cares how she dressed--it wasn't about her clothes!
I met Mrs. Childs and cooked for her (for a KERA charity event).
She couldn't have been more gracious.
God rest her.
And we all owe her a great debt of gratitude for taking the best of French (spit!) cooking and appropriating it for American cuisine.
If butter, eggs, flour and salt --in short, Taste--don't disappear from the national diet, it's largely due to her influence.
Posted by: GreatestJeneration   2004-08-14 12:05:04 PM  

#1  Zenster, your headline is not very nice.

Funny, but not very nice. :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2004-08-14 9:42:49 AM  

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