If legendary television chef and author Julia Child were still standing, she'd be turning 100 years old today. Should you find yourself craving one of the culinary matron's masterpieces, flip on some reruns of The French Chef or In Julia's Kitchen With Master Chefs, then make yourself an authentic French recipe from scratch, courtesy of JC. Here are a few of our favorite ideas.
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Any American can finagle a batch of pancakes in the morning, but crepes, the French equivalent of pancakes, are regarded highly because making them requires good technique and a lot of practice. However, don't be discouraged. You too can produce paper-thin, lacy, semicrisp crepes, and Julia Child's recipe for dessert crepes is a great way to become acclimated to crepe-making.
Julia Child's batter for dessert crepes is shockingly easy — just measure out the ingredients and whirl them around in a blender. The tricky part is the actual cooking. Luckily there is a video of Julia cooking crepes for the faint of heart. Notice the crepes should be spotted brown with a smooth consistency.
If your pan is too hot, the crepes will bubble as they cook and become craterlike, as pictured on the left. They are still edible (and delicious!), but lower the heat slightly so the rest of the crepes will be smooth, as pictured on the right.
Crêpes suzette is one of Julia's most notable preparations of dessert crepes, but the sauce is pretty heavy and the dessert crepes themselves are already saturated in butter. For a lighter, fresher topping to complement the buttery crepes, try marinating strawberries (or another fruit) in orange liqueur and granulated sugar. The orange liqueur adds an indescribable depth and richness to the berries without weighing down their fruity, ripe flavor. It's about time you swallow any trepidation, pull out that nonstick pan, and start making Julia's crepes now.
Throughout her life, Julia Child elevated America's relationship with food by sharing her love affair for French cooking and culture on television and in her cookbooks. But there's much to learn from the iconic chef, who would have turned 100 today, outside of the kitchen.
The 6'2" former member of America's OSS (Office of Strategic Services) married her fellow OSS employee, Paul, when she was 34. He previously had lived in Paris as an artist, and eventually they moved there together for Paul's new job as a diplomat. It was there that Julia cultivated her love for her husband and good food. Anyone who saw the movie Julie and Julia will recognize their love story. And while Meryl Streep did a worthy job capturing Julia Child's spirit, it also shines through Julia's own words, which touch on love, pleasure, and, of course, food. Reading through her quotes, you will find inspiration and various life mottos to choose from. If you want to add a dash of Julia Child to your life, here is a recipe for happiness based on her best lines. Bon appétit!
Today, Aug. 15, is big day when it comes to celebrity chef birthdays: not only would Julia Child turn 100 years old if she were still alive, but Top Chef head honcho Tom Colicchio is celebrating his 50th year, too! In honor of their respective birthdays, I put together a fun little quiz that tests your knowledge of the chefs-turned-television stars. Can you tell the difference between their lives and careers? Find out now when you take the quiz!
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On the anniversary of what would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday, we're celebrating more than just her culinary skills. We admit being distracted by the elegantly set dinner table, classic candelabras, and charming gingham panels on the set of Julie & Julia. To honor one of our favorite bon vivants, we're digging up inspiring scenes from the film and hunting down the decor to show you how to get the look for your kitchen – and home.
Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures
Believe it or not, tomorrow marks what would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday, a momentous date to be sure. Of course, it only seems fitting to celebrate Julia's centennial with a sliver of cake from her recipe archives.
While the grand dame of French cookery mostly stuck to classic French sponge cakes in her iconic tomes, it was still a challenge to narrow down the variety of options. I was tempted left and right by promises of cakes perfumed with orange zest, studded with glacéed fruit, and topped with glossy apricot glaze, but ultimately, only one cake was deemed fitting for the task. Named for the Queen of Sheba, the reine de Saba is quite literally a cake fit for a queen, and while we may have expressed occasional (the slightest of slight!) misgivings about some of Julia's fussier recipes (and this one surely qualifies), there's no denying that Julia was, and is, a queen in our hearts, and ought to be celebrated as such.
Keep reading for the "extremely good" (Julia's words) recipe.
In honor of Julia Child's birthday — la grande dame turns 100 tomorrow! — we're cooking up a bunch of the recipes with which she staked her claim to fame.
Perhaps one of the recipes Julia's best known for is her moules à la marinière, but flipping through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I spotted another mussels recipe that deserves equal acknowledgement: JC's moules à la Provençal.
The first step to making this recipe is to split open the mussels: one can shuck them raw, but I prefer to steam them gently, then save the broth to add a saline flavor to my next seafood dish.
From there, the bivalves are stuffed with butter, breadcrumbs, butter, garlic, onions, and more butter, then put under the broiler. Mere minutes later, they emerge rust-brown and bubbling on the half shell, ready to be consumed immediately.
Raise a glass mussel to Julia when you make this gratinéed mussels recipe.
My mother and I are always bickering about the best way to prepare roast chicken, and when she's decided she's grown tired of fighting, she'll simply say, "But this is how Julia does it." Those swift words silence me, and, ultimately, whatever Julia's method is, it always wins. It made me think, what is it about Julia Child's recipes that reign supreme?
It may sound blasphemous, but we YumSugar editors have agreed that at times, Julia's recipes can be confusing, difficult to follow, and emotional. The pressure is majorly on to successfully replicate each of her recipes — and do them justice. One missed step or accidental mishap sends a flood of panicky hormones into my bloodstream. And then, I take a deep breath and remember that Julia took risks, made mistakes, and definitely dropped things, but she persevered.
Julia's recipes reign supreme because they are about learning through experience and, most importantly, maintaining the integrity of traditional French cuisine. So I go through the motions (and emotions) while attempting Julia's roast chicken. Thanks be to Julia, I use my "courage of conviction" to persevere.
Julia's method involves flipping the chicken, so it cooks on its sides. This browns more surface area of the chicken, but the true caramelization occurs by continuously basting the chicken in an oil and butter mixture. The end result is an charming, crisp chicken that looks like it's been pulled off of a rotisserie.
My mother admits, the slippery, hot chicken can be difficult to handle and the perfectly caramelized skin is easily ripped. To avoid this, use a large spatula to lift the chicken from the pan very carefully, then ease the chicken onto its side with a pair of tongs.
Rips, slips, and mini setbacks aside, the finished bird is breathtaking. "While it does not require years of training to produce a juicy, brown, buttery, crisp-skinned, heavenly bird, it does entail such a greed for perfection that one is under compulsion to hover over the bird, listen to it, above all see that it is continually basted, and that it is done just to the proper turn," Julia writes in the original recipe intro. Indeed, above all else, set an alarm for every 10 minutes and baste that bird devotedly. Learn how to make roast chicken.
Francophile alert: if Julia Child, the grand dame of French cookery, were still alive, then she would be celebrating her centennial birthday in just one short week (on Aug. 15). Naturally, it only seems fitting to crack the spine on her seminal masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and get cooking, in honor of the auspicious date.
Not too surprisingly, flipping through the pages of pithy prose and detailed instructions provided ample inspiration — one could easily spend a year devoted to cooking from the hefty tome — but my penchant for anything and everything soup eventually led me to settle on her classic recipe for potage parmentier (otherwise known as potato leek soup).
Confession time part deux: up until relatively recently I was deathly afraid of anything and everything shellfish. My irrational reasoning led to years of missed opportunities to dine on the sweet and briny flesh of everything from lobster to, you guessed it, mussels. That said, since I changed my tune (buttery herb-flecked roast crab was my entreé into the shellfish-lovers club), I've been making up for lost time.
I'm a sucker for all things bivalve and crustacean but had yet to try my hand at shellfish cookery at home. It seemed only fitting to follow Julia Child's guidelines for moules à la marinière on my first at-home shellfish adventure; her gentle but firm recipe guidance didn't fail to deliver.
