Obituary of Juila McWilliams Child

San Francisco Chronicle (CA) - August 14, 2004
Deceased Name: JULIA CHILD: 1912-2004 TV's French chef taught us how to cook with panache

The monumental gusto of Julia Child -- the master French cook, author and television pioneer who forever changed the way Americans think of food and cooking -- gave out just two days shy of her 92nd birthday.

Child died of kidney failure at 2:50 a.m. Friday in her assisted-living home in Montecito, near Santa Barbara.

"She made cooking fun. She got food off the altar. And she was a volunteer for turning Americans on to all things French, especially food," said Linda Carucci, Julia Child Curator of Food Arts at Copia in Napa.

While Child knew next to nothing about cooking, let alone French cuisine, until she was well into her 30s, her show "The French Chef" made her TV's first food celebrity after it premiered on public television in 1963.

She demystified the kitchen, teaching attention to technique and taste with a nonchalant humor that encouraged viewers to relax and trust their instincts and palates. She could be awkward, but dropping a chicken on the floor, dusting it off and serving it with aplomb taught home cooks to relax and seek enjoyment rather than perfection.

Child often credited the times for her success, which took root during the 1960s as the nation was falling in love with foreign travel and food of other cultures. Women's roles were expanding, and President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, had installed French chef Rene Verdon in the White House. The ground was fertile for an entertaining expert on the previously intimidating world of French cuisine.

In many ways, her efforts informed the rise of California cuisine in the 1970s. Alice Waters, renowned chef-owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, said, "Certainly, her cooking shows and her education of Americans around food and the pleasures of the table prepared people to come to eat at the restaurant. And I'm sure her attitude about food -- because she was a Francophile as well -- had an influence on me."

Her success also fed a growing interest in all things culinary, including enterprises such as Williams-Sonoma, now a national purveyor of high-quality cookware. Williams-Sonoma founder Chuck Williams credits the publication of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" for a big upswing in the sale of terrines, balloon whips and bain-maries.

"She changed the way we cook. We're not talking about making souffles -- it's the way we cook everything. It's cooking string beans for 15 minutes instead of an hour and a half," Williams said. "We care about how it tastes and how it looks."

Above all, Child was an advocate for the good life and the joys of the table. Nouvelle cuisine, low-fat and low-cholesterol cooking and the politically correct insistence on organically grown food and free-range fowl all met with her unfettered mirth.

"What's so great," she once mused at a San Francisco press conference, "about some birds trotting around in their own excrement?"

Julia McWilliams Child was born into a moneyed and well-educated Pasadena family in 1912. Her later culinary sophistication, however, cannot be traced to her affluent childhood. Both the family cook and the kitchen staff at the Katharine Branson School in Ross, which she attended from 1927 to 1930, prepared the drab, overcooked and underseasoned food typical of American cooking of the time.

Used to the luxury of maids and cooks, Child never had the slightest interest in cooking through her young adulthood. Tall, energetic, outdoorsy, a tennis player and given to pranks, Child dutifully went through the debutante routine expected in her social class and managed to get a degree from Smith College.

Returning to Pasadena, she plunged into the social life of the upper crust and eventually went to New York and a public relations job at a department store, all without acquiring the expected husband or suitable suitor.

Family and friends attributed her single status in part to her height. She ended up finding both her romantic and culinary awakening with Paul Child, a man half a head shorter and 10 years older than she, an artist-turned- mapmaker for the wartime Office of Strategic Services.

Julia, who did office work for the OSS in 1943 in Sri Lanka, was fascinated by the urbane Paul, who had lived in France and was an expert in food and wine. Their early years together were like one big culinary expedition as they roamed Sri Lanka and China.

Back in the United States in 1946, "Paul married me in spite of my cooking," she told interviewers.

Being married to a gourmand, the 30ish bride set about learning to cook from "The Joy of Cooking" while living in Washington, D.C. Her husband's transfer to a Foreign Service position in France awakened his wife to the wonders of French food, a move that would lead to a revolution in American cooking.

Studies at the Cordon Bleu, private classes with its master chef, Max Bugnard, and, eventually, the association with two Frenchwomen, Simone Beck (Simca) and Louisette Bertholle, resulted in the three women establishing an informal cooking school, L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes. A few years later, the trio published the book that forever changed how America cooks, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (Alfred A. Knopf, 1961).

Child was 37 when she first enrolled in cooking school, but she more than made up for lost time. "The French Chef" cooking show on WGBH-TV in Boston made her name a household word across the country. On a par with show-business celebrities, she became a one-name entity. "This is Julia's daube (or terrine or mousse au chocolat)" became a common phrase for hosts complimented on their meals.

Child's raspy voice and chatty manner entranced her audience and propelled TV cooking shows into a prominence that continues to grow. Her most recent shows were "Cooking With Master Chefs," in which she appeared with her frequent co-star and co-author, French chef Jacques Pepin. Their 1999 "Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home" (Knopf) stayed on best-seller lists for months and also spawned a television series.

Pepin said Friday of his longtime friend, "She demystified French cooking for (Americans) in very simple terms and in a very American way, you know, with all kinds of enthusiasm and excitement. She was that type of strong personality, and I feel that people through the little TV screen could feel how genuine she was, how true to herself and how unpretentious she was."

Child, who was honored with a Medal of Freedom by President Bush on July 23, 2003, kept lecturing, filming TV cooking shows and writing even when her health became unsteady in recent years. She kept up her enthusiastic support of the American Institute of Food and Wine, which she co-founded and helped fund, and the International Association of Cooking Professionals, which bestows annual Julia Child Cookbook Awards.

She also was an early and vigorous proponent of Copia, the Robert Mondavi- supported American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts in Napa. The institution's elegant restaurant was named Julia's Kitchen in her honor.

A few items from Child's Cambridge, Mass., kitchen are in the restaurant. The bulk of the kitchen went to the Smithsonian Institution, where it was meticulously reassembled, right down to window curtains and drawer contents, in the National Museum of American History.

Child had moved to Santa Barbara, where she and her husband had spent winters for many years, shortly before her 90th birthday, choosing a progressive retirement home. She started at the home's most independent level with the option of moving to an assisted living level if and when needed.

"Julia," explained Stephanie Hersh, her assistant, "made these retirement plans many years ago. She thinks it's selfish for people not to make arrangements for their old age in good time."

Child herself, when asked as she turned 90 how she kept fit despite her disdain of diets and love of butter, outlined her personal plan, which included small helpings of everything, no seconds and no snacking but "drinking a modest amount of good wine."

Child was a consistent advocate of partaking of the delicious things in life. In an interview in San Francisco days after the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, she was asked what she would order if she knew it would be her last meal.

She didn't blink: "Cracked crab, oysters, something with duck, asparagus . .. whether it's in season or not ... something chocolate for dessert, and a bottle of wine with every course."

Child's husband, Paul, who did photography and illustrations for her work after his retirement from government service in 1961, died in 1994 after a long, debilitating illness. The couple had no children.

She is survived by her sister, Dorothy Cousins of Mill Valley, and several nieces and nephews. Cousins said cremation was private but that plans for a memorial gathering in Santa Barbara would be announced within a few weeks.

In the Bay Area, the American Institute of Wine and Food will hold a memorial event in late September or early October.

The family suggests memorial contributions be made to the AIWF Julia Child Circle, 633 York St., San Francisco, CA 94110; Copia's Julia Child Culinary Program Fund, 5020 First St., Napa, CA 94559; or the Culinary Trust, Endangered Treasures Program, 304 West Liberty, Suite 201, Louisville, KY 40202.
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"She was always there for me as a mentor. (Her TV show) was always on in the background of my life. When I was involved in the politics of the '60s, I feel she was in my ear. Who knows? It might be the reason I went to France and came back and opened a restaurant."
- Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse, Berkeley .

"She changed the way we cook in this country. We're not talking about making souffles. It's about cooking string beans for 15 minutes instead of an hour and a half."

- Chuck Williams, founder of Williams-Sonoma, San Francisco .

"The thing that strikes me most is that she made cooking fun. She got food off the altar. I grew up outside Boston, and in those days, there was only one TV in the house. On Wednesday night and when WGBH played that ("The French Chef") tune, we all went into the living room and my mother took notes.

And for a half-hour, we were mesmerized, and my father made jokes about the wine and my mother told him to be quiet. My mother gave food credibility by getting the pen and pad out and writing things down. She'd never do that over anything else on TV. It sort of legitimized food for me."

Linda Carucci, Copia's Julia Child Curator of Food Arts, Napa .

"I owe my career to Julia Child. When I came to San Francisco in 1968, I was a temporary secretary, but I wanted to do something more meaningful. At night, I would read from 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking.' (I started teaching when) 11 people came to my flat and I would teach them everything I'd learned from Julia Child's book. Now, 30 years later, I have a cooking school in San Francisco grossing over $1 million a year, and I owe it all to Julia Child."
Mary Risley, owner of Tante Marie's Cooking School, San Francisco .

"During the week of the earthquake (in 1989), she had a reservation on Friday. We were very excited. Then the earthquake hit (on Tuesday). We reopened on Friday. Everyone had left town, people canceled. Then here goes Julia -- she calls to reconfirm. Sure enough, that night, she came to the restaurant. That night, we only had locals; we were fairly busy because it felt like people wanted to go somewhere. Everyone recognized Julia, and it created such a good feeling. Everybody felt special. (People) had deserted town, and Julia stayed and was eating like nothing had happened."

Hubert Keller, chef/co-owner of Fleur de Lys, San Francisco

(1) Julia Child demystified cooking with nonchalant good humor.
Nancy Palmieri

Associated Press 2001, (2) Julia Child explains in her warbling, encouraging voice how to prepare a soup on the televised "The French Chef" in 1974.
Paul Child

Boston Globe 1974 Author: Karola SaekelEdition: FINALPage: A1Copyright (c) , 2004, San Francisco Chronicle. All Rights Reserved.