Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California on August 15, 1912. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Smith College in 1934 and served with the Office of Strategic Services in East Asia during World War II. After the war, Child lived in Paris for six years, attending the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school. After graduating from cooking school, Child opened her own culinary institute called, L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes with her friends Simone Bech and Louisette Bertholle. She achieved critical acclaim with her first cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking which was first published in 1961 and is still in print today and helped to popularized French cuisine in America. Starting in 1963, Child hosted the first of many award winning cooking series on PBS, where she was best known for her exuberant personality and flamboyant cooking style. Her other books include The French Chef Cookbook; From Julia Child's Kitchen; and The Way to Cook. She also filmed an instructional video series on cooking and wrote columns for various magazines and newspapers. She died of kidney failure on August 13, 2004 at the age of 91.
Julia Child, a native of California and a Smith College graduate; Simone Beck, French-born and -educated; and Louisette Bertholle, half French and half American, educated in both countries, represented an even blending of the two backgrounds and were singularly equipped to write about French cooking for Americans. Mrs. Child studied at Paris's famous "Cordon Bleu," and all three authors worked under various distinguished French chefs. In 1951 they started their own cooking school in Paris, "L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes," at the same time that this book was taking shape. After that, Madame Beck published two cookbooks, "Simca's Cuisine" in 1972 and" New Menus from Simca's Cuisine" in 1979, and she continued to teach cooking in France. Madame Bertholle also had several cookery books published. Shortly after the appearance of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 1961, Julia Child began appearing in the public television series "The French Chef," which aired for many years all over the United States, and in 1978 the program "Julia Child & Company" was launched, followed the next year by "Julia Child & More Company," In 1968 recipes from her early programs, many of which were drawn from this book, were published in "The French Chef Cookbook,"
In 1975 "From Julia Child's Kitchen "was published, followed in 1978 and 1979 by "Julia Child & Company" and "Julia Child & More Company," based on those programs. Also based on television series were the two books--"Cooking with Master Chefs" and "In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs"--she wrote in the mid-1990s, as well as "Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home," with Jacques Pepin, in 1999. "The Way to Cook," her magnum opus, was published in1989, and in 2000 she gave us "Julia's Kitchen Wisdom," a distillation of her years of cooking experience.
