Child of Julia

I can't dredge up a single 'French Chef' recipe from memory, and I can't tell you I learned a single cooking technique from watching Julia Child. I have vivid memories of watching her in the afternoons on PBS in the 1970s and not really paying attention at all to what she was doing so much as how she was doing it. I don't know for sure, but I suspect the only reason I ever watched 'The French Chef' was because it was on before or after Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street or something like that that I did care about.

But I love to cook, and I owe that as much to Julia Child as to any of my actual model chefs over the years. She may have represented something else to the generation that came before me, and she may have been some kind of pioneer in TV cooking shows, but just the idea that getting food on the table was a FUN thing to do was her important legacy to me. Next time I open the best bottle of wine to splash into some dish, I'll have the Chef's glass in her honor.