the one and only Julia Child!
We visited Julia Child’s famous “T.V. kitchen” on display at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History last week. We’ve been talking about going to see it for ages, since we read Julie and Julia. Our fascination grew with our recent Julia Child cooking marathon party at John’s place with the release of the “Julie and Julia” movie last summer. Our friend KevStar was also pretty worked up about JC then, too. Last week, we were visiting family and friends in Virginia. So finally we had the opportunity to go.
On the ride from my folk’s place in NoVA along Interstate 66 to the Vienna Metro station, I couldn’t help but think of that somewhat non-PC joke that my friend, Cesar, taught me in New York about ten years ago. It goes something like this:
What’s the Western European idea of heaven?
It’s a place that you go to when you die where you have a French chef, an Italian lover, a British policeman, all organized by the Germans.
What’s the Western European idea of Hell?
It’s a place that you go to when you die where you have a British chef, a German lover, a French policeman, all organized by the Italians. Har, har!
Julia Child's kitchen at the Smithsonian Institution
Julia Child’s life was simply amazing! And whatever you may think of this mildly tasteless joke (everyone always complains that Germans are excellent lovers; and stereotyping is bad) her legacy was to educate and wean American cooks from our boring British past thereby making us into “French chefs.” And she did the whole thing with such style!
Julia Child's pans with famous peg board
The exhibit was crowded by tourists. On display was her kitchen from her former home in Cambridge, MA as well as a lot of memorabilia, including continually running clips of her various T.V. shows. It really was cool! I was struck by how ordinary the kitchen looked. I actually identified several kitchen implements, like a Japanese mandolin, a metal steamer basket and some other things that we have in our kitchen right now. That’s probably not an accident, and it’s probably all do to Julia Child.
The things are interesting but don’t really capture the magic that was Julia. I think watching her truss a chicken, lather it with massive amounts of butter then wrap it with blanched bacon for a slow roast on metal spits all the while chatting away in her distinctive and quite peculiar accent on one of the re-runs on display was the most poignant thing for me. It was the woman herself that made everything work. I’m glad that I went but the kitchen is just so much curious old stuff. We miss you Julia Child!
wild French dishes
Poliana getting com fome at Julia Child's kitchen
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Nice that you got to see Julia’s kitchen. I still need to cook some of her dishes one of these days!