Ever-delightful celebrity chef Julia Child has died at age 91. Raise a glass of wine to her tonight -- if you're eating well in America, you owe her.
The New York Times has a fairly detailed obituary. This passage is good:
For all her expertise at the stove, what made Mrs. Child such an influential teacher was her good-humored insistence that cooking was not brain surgery. If you drop the turkey on the floor, she would say, "You're alone in your kitchen."" Just pick it up and go on with the dressing. And by example she made cooking a respectable profession, for women as well as men.Mrs. Child also consistently refused to cut her cuisine to fit the current fashion. At the height of the reign of nutrition terror, in the 80's and 90's, when reliable health information seemed to have the shelf life of a baguette, she repeated one mantra: "If you're afraid of butter, use cream." Long before anyone ever put the words French and paradox together, she was advocating red wine and cheese, and the more the better.
Related:
Backcountry Conservative covers her history as an employee of the OSS during World War II
Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs at PBS
Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian (Flash site)