Yes, I am eighteen. But I understand the impact that the late great Julia Child has made on food and cooking in general in the U.S. I watched her show after each Arthur show concluded, and I have to say, I loved her energy.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a food person who doesn't immediately think of Julia when anyone references the "Chicken Show" (a personal favorite of mine). And I can't refer to Boef Bourguignon without exclaiming it in Julia's jubilant tone. Not that I refer to it frequently...usually just when someone mentions Julia.
Things I remember about Julia are just brief snippets, segments from her PBS programs that I watched when I was six. Learning to make bagels. Eating avocados with Rick Bayless. Donning a fireman's helmet and wielding a fire extinguisher at the prospect of good friend and co-host Jacques Pepin flambeing something (it may have been Crepes Suzette). She had a real enthusiasm when in the kitchen, and it was obviously infectious. No chef seemed to leave her kitchen without first having a thoroughly good time.
She taught people to get excited about food. I'm not really sure if the episode with Rick Bayless was actually the first time she ate an avocado. If it wasn't, she made it seem like it was, sharing her new discoveries about the food with her viewer and her guest.
She made people laugh. I don't even know if she actually intended to. Certainly, wearing a fire hat and preparing to extinguish Jacques's crepes was a planned moment of hilarity, and sitting various raw chickens cross-legged (cross-drumsticked?) couldn't have been planned without some chuckling among the production crew. But her infectious passion led to a cooking show that not only pioneered in its field, but also made the viewers smile. That voice? When I hear Julia's name, that's all I can think of.
Julia was more than just a culinary and television pioneer. She was a woman bold enough to enroll in a high-level class of all men at Le Cordon Bleu. She made French food "cool," and started her whole culinary journey when she was in her thirties, not slowing down until she was in her eighties.
She was the reason I wanted omelets for breakfast when I stayed overnight at my aunt's house. And her show is what opened the door for essentially every other cooking show that has aired on American television since. Without her, there would be no "celebrity chef," no Food Network, and no real knowledge of French cuisine among purported foodies.
For these things I thank her. She was a woman who took food very seriously, but could also find it in her to laugh at herself. She never seemed to stop looking for new foods to fuel her passion for food. And she, in a way, inspired me to love food, cooking, and cooking shows.
I know I cried when I found out she'd passed on. It just never seemed possible that she could stop living, eating, and enjoying life. But when you think about it, until her death, she never did.
Her birthday isn't over quite yet in my timezone. I raise my glass to you, Julia. You truly were, are, and always will be, the best.
Bon Appetit, Julia. And Bon Anniversaire.
~AF.
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