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. (more…)