Today marks the 100th birthday of Julia Child, who introduced Americans to the wonders of French cooking. Child died in 2004, but her legacy lives on through her books, including the landmark Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and DVDs of her PBS cooking show, which remains hugely popular. Those of us in the DC area are particularly lucky to have the opportunity to see Julia Child's kitchen, which was dismantled several years ago from her Cambridge, Mass. home and brought to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The kitchen display recently has been closed to the public as the museum undergoes renovations, but was re-opened today in celebration of Child's 100th birthday.
All for Julia: 100 days of buzz and the gift of her kitchen returns - The Washington Post
We have a number of Child's cookbooks at the library, and most are shelved as 641.5944 CHILD. We also have Child's delightful autobiography, My Life in France, (641.509 CHILD), and Julie and Julia (641.509 POWELL), blogger Julie Powell's chronicle of the year she worked her way through the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Young chefs may enjoy two new biographies of Child, which can be found in new books cart in the Children's Room: Bon Appetit! by Jessie Hartland (J B Child) and Minette's Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and her Cat by Susanna Reich (J B CHILD).
" And even though I was fat and hopeless at games, which are very unacceptable things for a schoolgirl, I was happy and confident. That was quite simply because I had a mother and a father at home who thought I was wonderful. They thought all their geese were swans."
(from this)
Guardian obit (which refers to this wonderful wedding story Binchy wrote as a young reporter)