Last night, we were in the kitchen cooking, while watching the Jim Lehrer NewsHour, where we heard the news that Julia Child passed away at the age of 91.
I had interviewed Child for my book, PBS:Behind the Screen. She pioneered the entire how-to genre for educational television, bringing good French cooking to American housewives. She was an American original.
Child seemed to me exactly as Jacques Pepin described her on the NewsHour broadcast: unpretentious, kind, gracious, "an anti-snob." And as Pepin says in this interview, the food revolution Child helped launch made a big contribution to the abundance of good food and quality ingredients we have today.
If there is a heaven, Julia Child is up there, cooking something right now.
To Julia Child, "Bon Appetit!"
