Today would have been Julia Child’s birthday and I am in no mood to be subtle about it. She is one of my heroes. Not just because she could sear a duck without breaking a sweat but because she managed to dominate in a profession where men were used to holding the knife and the spotlight. Julia walked in, taller than most of them, voice booming like a church bell, and showed everyone that authority in the kitchen was not about gender. It was about taste, skill, and the nerve to carry on when you have dropped a chicken on the floor.

I grew up French Canadian so many of Julia’s recipes already lived somewhere in my memory before I saw her make them. Boeuf bourguignon. French onion soup. Duck à l’orange. Coquilles Saint Jacques. Dishes my mother would unveil for fancy dinners, though Julia’s versions always came with something extra, the tacit permission to botch them and keep going. Burn the onions? She would say scrape them up and carry on. Sauce too thin? Thicken it and serve it anyway. The party is not ruined and neither are you.

Whenever I am in Boston I make my way to Cambridge like a faithful parishioner just to see what used to be her house. I have traced her steps to Savenor’s Market where the meat still looks like it is posing for a Renaissance still life and to Harvest, a restaurant she loved. And I always think about her kitchen there, the famous one now sitting in the Smithsonian, and how it was designed for cooks not for looks. Counters set at her height, pegboards covered in tools, every pot within reach, the whole thing humming with utility and warmth. One day I hope to build a kitchen like that for myself, not as a shrine, but as a place where food and people come together without anyone worrying whether the tiles match the curtains.

What I admire most is her tenacity. She faced adversity without smoothing out her edges, laughed at the messes, and turned teaching into a form of generosity. She did not need to be perfect to be extraordinary. She just needed to be herself, real, funny, and unafraid to spill the wine.

Happy birthday, Julia. You are why I cook with confidence even when chaos joins me at the stove.

Julia Child’s Kitchen is a gorgeous dive into the beloved cookbook author and television star’s favourite place in the world—her home kitchen—and how this space has influenced the ways we cook today.

Foreword by Jacques Pépin.

This book, a beautifully designed tribute to Julia Child’s legacy, is a must‑have for every serious home cook and Julia Child fan.

Including interviews with famous chefs who knew Julia well, commentary on her favourite kitchen gadgets, and a stunning array of photos, Julia Child’s Kitchen illuminates the stories behind the room’s design, use, and significance, revealing how Julia Child continues to impact food and cooking today.

Julia Child’s 20’ x 14’ kitchen was a serious workspace and recipe‑testing lab that exuded a sense of mid-century homey comfort. It has been on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., for most of the past twenty years, and museum goers have made it a top destination.

Between lively narrative, compelling photography, and detailed commentary on Julia’s favourite kitchen gadgets, Julia Child’s Kitchen illuminates the stories behind the room’s design, use, significance, and legacy, showing how deeply Julia Child continues to influence food today.

The kitchen contains more than one thousand parts and pieces—tools, appliances, utensils, furniture, artwork, knick-knacks, books, and bits of whimsy—all reflecting Julia’s status as an accomplished chef, gastronome, delightful cooking teacher, television trailblazer, women’s advocate, mentor, and generous, jovial friend.

Authored by Paula J. Johnson, one of the original collectors and keepers of Julia Child’s home kitchen for the past twenty-one years at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

About the Author: Paula J. Johnson is project director and co-curator of the exhibition, “Food: Transforming the American Table” at the National Museum of American History, where she has helped shape the museum’s research, collecting, exhibitions and programming around food history. Johnson, a folklorist and public historian, has conducted field research on many topics and published two books on the Chesapeake Bay.

Published with permission from Abrams Books,