Julia Child

Cabaret artist Jennifer Blades will reprise her role as Julia Child in Lee Hoiby's 18-minute opera "Bon Appetit" during an evening of dinner and opera at Germano's. In addition, Blades will portray Child in a new piece about Child's friendship with the chef Lidia Bastianich, who will be played by Alessandra Fabiani. Written originally for Jean Stapleton, "Bon Appetit" has been described as "a comic culinary extravaganza. " The performances and menu for the evening were inspired by the 1993 PBS special, "Julia Child: Cooking With Master Chefs," in which Julia Child showcases Bastianich cooking pasta with broccoli rabe and sausage and risotto with porcini mushrooms.

The Pissaladiere Nicoise, an onion tart studded with black olives and anchovies, is being passed around to the dinner guests while the Navets a la Champenoise, a turnip casserole, and braised stuffed breast of veal finish in the oven. A French Frisee salad with lardons (bacon) and quail eggs will be served, followed by a dessert course of Tarte aux Pommes (apple tart) and Reine de Saba Cake, a chocolatey confection also known as Queen of Sheba Cake. In other words, it's fancy-schmancy.

On what would have been 100th birthday for Julia Child, queen of the upscale cookbook, here's some good reading: The Washington Post reports that the National Museum of American History today reopened one of its most beloved exhibits: the kitchen Child used for television shows. "The copper pot collection represented only in outline until it was reunited with Child's kitchen in 2009 now hangs directly across from where it belonged. Child's French Legion of Honor medal of 2000 and the 1996 Emmy statuette for “In Julia's Kitchen With Master Chefs” are displayed nearby.

Whether you're stuffing your face with a KFC Double Down sandwich or watching Gordon Ramsay roast professional chefs on "Hell's Kitchen," you're sharing in one of society's biggest obsessions: food. "Food is hot," said Paula Johnson, curator for the new exhibit "FOOD: Transforming the American Table, 1950-2000," which opened recently in Washington. "It's a topic people are very interested in, as evidenced by TV, books and blogs. " Johnson's exhibit, on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, examines the transformation of food and the ways it has shaped American culture.

Julia Child came not only to celebrate, but to slay some myths.Ms. Child, marking 25 years cooking for the cameras on PBS, says she never dropped a chicken on the floor during her cooking show, then picked it up and put it back in the pan, saying, "Lucky me, I'm all alone in the kitchen and nobody will ever know the difference."And she absolutely insists she never took a swig out of a wine bottle while cooking -- at least not when she was on the air."But people swear they saw me do those things on television," the grand dame of the TV kitchen said yesterday during a press conference at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Los Angeles.

Washington -- After 34 years, the woman who gave new meaning to the term "TV dinner" is still going strong: still cooking, still teaching, still telling television audiences what good cuisine is and how to put it on their own tables. Julia Child, doyenne of American cooking teachers, has just launched her latest TV series, "In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs."In the series, filmed in the kitchen of Ms. Child's 1880 house in Cambridge, Mass., more than two dozen chefs talk about their culinary passions and, under the hostess' watchful eye, prepare signature dishes for folks at home to replicate.

It's been more than 30 years since Julia Child first stepped onto a television set with a whisk, a copper bowl and some eggs and taught the world -- at least that part of the world that watched "educational" television -- to make an omelet.The world has changed since then, and television, public and commercial, has also changed. But Ms. Child is very much the same person that generations have known and loved and learned from. As she launches her third television series this season, "Cooking with Master Chefs," she remains a tall, distinguished woman, articulate in her distinctive voice, and still passionate about good food and good living.

Noted cooking teacher and cookbook author Julia Child will be honored at the World Capital Chef's Society dinner Monday, at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza at Metro Center, 12th St. N.W., Washington.A group of Washington chefs will prepare dishes for the dinner which is open to the public. Tickets are $45 each and can be purchased in advance by writing WCCS Dinner Tickets, 4733 Bethesda, Ave. Suite 300 Bethesda 20814, or phoning 703-922-5322.Checks should be made payable to World Capital Chef's Society.

Julia Child is marking her 90th birthday this month, and there is no shortage of celebrations - from COPIA, the food and wine center she helped establish in Napa, Calif., to the Smithsonian Institution, where her Cambridge kitchen was unveiled as an official exhibit Monday. After all, Child has done more than anyone to teach Americans how to celebrate the joys of the table. She was no cook when she married Paul Child after World War II. But his artistic bent and love of fine food and drink inspired her to learn, and his diplomatic assignments in France gave her a chance to study with great chefs.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - In her house at 103 Irving St., Julia Child is sitting at the big Norwegian pine table, reminiscing about the room that has become one of America's best-known kitchens. "It's the beating heart of the home," she says, sipping a cup of coffee and nibbling on a well-buttered pastry. At 89, Child is moving to a retirement community in Southern California. But the famous kitchen will be stripped to the bare plaster, carefully labeled and packed, and shipped to its new home at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History on the Mall in Washington.

Cabaret artist Jennifer Blades will reprise her role as Julia Child in Lee Hoiby's 18-minute opera "Bon Appetit" during an evening of dinner and opera at Germano's. In addition, Blades will portray Child in a new piece about Child's friendship with the chef Lidia Bastianich, who will be played by Alessandra Fabiani. Written originally for Jean Stapleton, "Bon Appetit" has been described as "a comic culinary extravaganza. " The performances and menu for the evening were inspired by the 1993 PBS special, "Julia Child: Cooking With Master Chefs," in which Julia Child showcases Bastianich cooking pasta with broccoli rabe and sausage and risotto with porcini mushrooms.

On what would have been 100th birthday for Julia Child, queen of the upscale cookbook, here's some good reading: The Washington Post reports that the National Museum of American History today reopened one of its most beloved exhibits: the kitchen Child used for television shows. "The copper pot collection represented only in outline until it was reunited with Child's kitchen in 2009 now hangs directly across from where it belonged. Child's French Legion of Honor medal of 2000 and the 1996 Emmy statuette for “In Julia's Kitchen With Master Chefs” are displayed nearby.

To Baltimoreans by residence or in spirit, to Baltimoreans in need of comfort - that is, anyone with a corpuscle of love for the Ravens - I offer what works for me during any winter of discontent: coq au vin. The Super Bowl is a week away, and most of us will watch it, wondering what might have been had Billy Cundiff … or Lee Evans ... but never mind that. There are no comforting words for what happened last Sunday and what will happen next Sunday: our New England nemesis versus the New York franchise the Ravens trounced in the big game 11 long years ago. So let's try the coq au vin. Let me be clear: This is neither tailgate food nor a dish that requires a varsity letter in culinary arts.

Julie & Julia," the twinned tale of a groundbreaking cookbook queen, Julia Child (Meryl Streep), and a contemporary blogger, Julie Powell (Amy Adams), proves to be wacky, engaging entertainment. Writer-director Nora Ephron ("Sleepless in Seattle") fills it with colorful, mismatched parts. Happily, her fondness for the subject matter seals the rifts. For my money, this movie is by far her spriest and most likable achievement. Child, in heady postwar Paris, enters an all-male class at Le Cordon Bleu and later, with French friends, prepares her chef d'oeuvre.

Tuna casserole and Julia Child? It's hard to believe America's favorite chef used canned foods, but Laura Shapiro writes in her new biography, Julia Child, that Child created just such a recipe while working for S.S. Pierce, a Boston canned food company. She made a version "worthy of any dinner table she knew, including her own," Shapiro writes. Using today's more healthful canned soups and microwaveable brown rice, I've adapted the recipe to fit our busy lives. Comfort food needs comfort wine - in this case, a soft, fruity shiraz.

My Life in France By Julia Child, with Alex Prud'homme Alfred A. Knopf / 302 pages / $25.95 Julia Child's most successful recipe might not have been for boeuf bourguignon or bouillabaisse, but instead for a happy and successful marriage. The much-loved French chef of television fame was first a nervous bride, brought to Paris in 1948 by her husband, Paul, a midlevel bureaucrat at the American Embassy there. She was too big - at 6 foot 2, she towered over the petite French women, and her size 12 feet would not fit in their shoes.

NAPA, Calif. - A year ago, travelers on their way to wine country drove past orchards, cattle and the city of Napa - a commercial center and gateway to the Napa Valley, but not much of a tourist destination. That changed in November 2001 with the opening of Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts. Named for the goddess of abundance, the 80,000-square-foot center is a unique museum and nonprofit educational institution. "It's about time we celebrated the food and wine in this country, don't you think?

Cambridge, Mass.On a sunny winter afternoon in Julia Child's expansive kitchen, ,, lunch is poached eggs over homemade hash, an endive salad with French olive oil, wine vinegar and lemon -- and a bottle of Chardonnay.But it is nothing compared with the other activities she has on her burners:*Promoting the American Institute of Wine and Food.*Trying to establish master's degree programs in gastronomy at universities.*And fund-raising, such as a gala dinner and cooking demonstrations in late June for Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn.

Christopher Kimball is a reluctant advocate of lighter eating. His history -- I met him 22 years ago when he was throwing a New York soiree honoring James Beard, Craig Claiborne and Julia Child -- is that of a full-flavor guy. If you go Christopher Kimball is to discuss and sign The Best Light Recipe at 7 p.m. today at Barnes & Noble, the Avenue at White Marsh, 8123 Honeygo Blvd. Call 410-933-9670.

Once we were content to cook with flimsy pots and two types of cake pans (round and angel food), and to eat little beyond meat and potatoes, iceberg lettuce and a fair amount of lime-green Jell-O. Then along came Charles E. "Chuck" Williams, with his keen eye and impeccable taste, and an uncanny ability to know what we needed in our kitchens long before we ever did. It wasn't long before he had us mesmerized by KitchenAid stand mixers, Cuisinart food processors, Krups coffee makers and juicers -- as well as zesters, saute pans, tart pans and real Italian aceto balsamico.