What Julia Child Can Teach Us All About Cooking and Life

by Huggingthecoast.Com | August 10, 2009 at 03:25 pm
485 views | 6 Recommendations | 2 comments

Videos

For the Love of Julia ___ And All Things Julia Child

see larger video

sourced by Huggingthecoast.Com

For the Love of Julia ___ And All Things Julia Child

Photos

Have a taste!

Have a taste!

see larger image

uploaded by josse

In honor of the Julia Child's upcoming birthday on August 15th and the film premiere of Julie and Julia, which stars Meryl Streep, here's an article about how to find inspiration from the life of Julia Child in the kitchen and beyond.

Like so many great memories, it all started with a meal.

The restaurants of Chungking and Kunming were full of unfamilliar and exotic looking dishes, but the woman who grew up in Pasadena was eager to try new things with the encouragement of her older and more worldly fiance who also worked for the O.S.S.

It felt like an adventure eating strangely wonderful foods in an ancient land; the beginning of a new life in an old country for however long their time in China lasted.

Eventually, they ended up in Rouen, France, on the cobblestoned walk where Joan of Arc had met her fate. There, in the oldest restaurant in France, Julia Child learned to drink wine in the afternoon like a European and ate a butter browned Sole Meuniere that changed her life.

A few bites of a perfectly prepared fish led to her transformation from (as she put it) “an eater” to a cook; training at the Le Cordon Bleu, writing the first of many books (Mastering the Art of French Cooking), as well as putting together a series of beloved cooking shows for PBS.

But first, like so many who didn’t grow up cooking at an early age, she made mistakes in the kitchen. Big mistakes. And then gave herself permission to take out a new pan and try again.

And that’s what every future good cook needs; permission to try and fail. Permission to make all the inevitable yet necessary mistakes one needs to make before one becomes truly comfortable in the kitchen. Permission to start over in a new pan. Permission to let one’s ingredients breathe.

Below are a selection of recipes by (as well as inspired by) Julia Child…enjoy!

Remembering Julia Child With Recipes

If you’d like to enjoy many more recipes by Julia Child, Whisk Blog has a great collection of Julia’s recipes here.

--Doug DuCap/ Hugging the Coast

recommend This comment thread is now closed
1
Patricia Turo

Not being afraid to fail was one of her most important lessons.  She was really responsible for making French cooking in America popular and that it was approachable and not some mystery. I use to watch her earlier shows and loved them.

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

What is NowPublic?

NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.

Find out more

Crowd Power

Patricia Turo
First Flagged at 5:43 PM, Aug 12, 2009 by Patricia Turo
These members have powered this story:

Related Stories

Recommendations (6)

Most recently recommended by:
 

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from