Julia Child was famously known for her talent in cooking and for being an American author. She was able to popularize French cuisine in America. Starting out in 1963, she renounced herself as a famous chef with the help of a Television show called “ The French Chef”. During her career, she primarily lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When her fame boomed, Child was determined to make good food and popularize French cuisine. Since her show was a huge success, she followed her passion and became a famous chef and also an author.
“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces-just good food from fresh ingredients,” said Child. Her cooking career lasted 41 years, as she started when she was 50, and she died at age 91 on August 13th, 2004, two days before her birthday. The whole point of her show, at first, was to promote her own cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.
Throughout her life, Child lived in Pasadena, California; Ceylon (Sri Lanka); Paris, France; Marseille, France; Washington, D.C.; Lumberville, Pennsylvania; Provence, France; Cambridge and Montecito, Massachusetts, and then finally settling permanently in Montecito, California in 2001. She moved around a lot due to her husband’s job with the U.S. Foreign Service.
Child felt that moving around so much would work in her favor for her love of cooking, especially french food. She knew that this type of food was inaccessible to America, so she took the opportunity as a chance to spread this cuisine to America. “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it,” said Child.
Some of the cookbooks that she had written throughout her career as a chef are, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, “My Life in France”, “The French Chef Cookbook”, “The Way to Cook”, “Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking: A Cookbook: Julia Child”, “Baking with Julia”, “Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home”, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol 2.”, “People Who Love to Eat are Always the Best People: And Other Wisdom”, “Julia Child & Company”, “From Julia Child’s Kitchen”, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2”, “Cooking With Master Chefs”, “In Julia’s Kitchen With Master Chefs”, etc. In total, she worked to write 18 books.
During her time, she had won many awards that Child earned that are worth mentioning. Those being the Emmy Awards, Peabody Award, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Legion of Honor, Culinary Institute of America Hall of Fame, and the National Book Award. Although these are all cool and dandy, she’s most proud of her achievement of spreading French cuisine to America.
Child was married to Paul Child for 48 years. Child treated her nieces, nephews, and cousins as “surrogate children”. Her father was John McWilliams and her mother was Julia Carolyn Weston. Julia was the oldest of three children. Her younger siblings were John McWilliams III and Dorothy “Dort” Cousins.
Hopefully, this story was interesting enough to inspire many others’ lives to get out there and work towards their dreams. As Child said,” The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” Good luck out there!
