A cookbook is a kitchen reference publication that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions. Cookbooks can also cover a wide variety topics, including cooking techniques for the home, recipes and commentary from famous chefs, institutional kitchen manuals, and cultural commentary.

History[link]

Title page from an 18th century edition of Forme of Cury.

The earliest cookbooks on record seem to be mainly lists of recipes for what would now be called haute cuisine, and were often written primarily to either provide a record of the author's favorite dishes or to train professional cooks for banquets and upper-class, private homes. Many of these cookbooks, therefore, provide only limited sociological or culinary value, as they leave out significant sections of ancient cuisine such as peasant food, breads, and preparations such as vegetable dishes too simple to warrant a recipe.

The earliest collection of recipes that has survived in Europe is De re coquinaria, written in Latin. An early version was first compiled sometime in the 1st century and has often been attributed to the Roman gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius, though this has been cast in doubt by modern research. An Apicius came to designate a book of recipes. The current text appears to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century; the first print edition is from 1483. It records a mix of ancient Greek and Roman cuisine, but with few details on preparation and cooking.^[1] An abbreviated epitome entitled Apici Excerpta a Vinidario, a "pocket Apicius" by Vinidarius, "an illustrious man",^[2] was made in the Carolingian era.^[3] In spite of its late date it represents the last manifestation of the cuisine of Antiquity.

The earliest cookbooks known in Arabic are those of al-Warraq (10th century) and al-Baghdadi (13th century).

Huou, Kublai Khan's court chef, wrote a collection of recipes called "The Important Things to Know About Eating and Drinking" in the 13th century; it includes mainly soups as well as household advice.^[4]

After a long interval, the first recipe books to be compiled in Europe since Late Antiquity started to appear in the late thirteenth century. All told, about a hundred survive, mostly fragmentary, from the age before printing.^[5] The earliest genuinely medieval recipes have been found in a Danish manuscript dating from around 1300, which in turn are copies of older texts that date back to the early 13th century or even earlier.^[6] Low and High German manuscripts are among the most numerous. Among them is Daz buch von guter spise ("The Book of Good Food") written c. 1350 in Würzberg and Kuchenmeysterey ("Kitchen Mastery"), the first printed German cook book from 1485.^[7] Two French collections are probably the most famous: Le Viandier ("The Provisioner") was compiled in the late 14th century by Guillaume Tirel, master chef for two French kings; and Le Menagier de Paris ("The Householder of Paris"), a household book written by an anonymous middle class Parisian in the 1390s.^[8] From Southern Europe there is the 14th century Catalan manuscript Llibre de Sent Soví ("The Book of Saint Sophia") and several Italian collections, notably the Venetian mid-14th century Libro per Cuoco,^[9] with its 135 recipes alphabetically arranged. The printed De honesta voluptate ("On honourable pleasure"), first published in 1475, is one of the first cookbooks based on Renaissance ideals, and, though it is as much a series of moral essays as a cookbook, has been described as "the anthology that closed the book on medieval Italian cooking".^[10] Recipes originating in England include the earliest recorded recipe for ravioli (1390s) and Forme of Cury, a late 14th century manuscript written by chefs of Richard II of England.^[11]

Types of cookbooks[link]

Cookbooks that serve as basic kitchen references (sometimes known as "kitchen bibles") began to appear in the early modern period. They provided not just recipes but overall instruction for both kitchen technique and household management. Such books were written primarily for housewives and occasionally domestic servants as opposed to professional cooks, and at times books such as The Joy of Cooking (USA), La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange (France), The Art of Cookery (UK, USA), Il cucchiaio d'argento (Italy), and A Gift to Young Housewives (Russia) have served as references of record for national cuisines. Related to this class are instructional cookbooks, which combine recipes with in-depth, step-by-step recipes to teach beginning cooks basic concepts and techniques. In vernacular literature, people may collect traditional recipes in family cookbooks.

International and ethnic cookbooks fall into two categories: the kitchen references of other cultures, translated into other languages; and books translating the recipes of another culture into the languages, techniques, and ingredients of a new audience. The latter style often doubles as a sort of culinary travelogue, giving background and context to a recipe that the first type of book would assume its audience is already familiar with.

Professional cookbooks are designed for the use of working chefs and culinary students and sometimes double as textbooks for culinary schools. Such books deal not only in recipes and techniques, but often service and kitchen workflow matters. Many such books deal in substantially larger quantities than home cookbooks, such as making sauces by the liter or preparing dishes for large numbers of people in a catering setting. While the most famous of such books today are books like Le guide culinaire by Escoffier or The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America, such books go at least back to medieval times, represented then by works such as Taillevent's Viandier and Chiquart d'Amiço's Du fait de cuisine.

Single-subject books, usually dealing with a specific ingredient, technique, or class of dishes, are quite common as well; indeed, some imprints such as Chronicle Books have specialized in this sort of book, with books on dishes like curries, pizza, and simplified ethnic food. Popular subjects for narrow-subject books on technique include grilling/barbecue, baking, outdoor cooking, and even recipe cloning.

Community cookbooks (also known as compiled, regional, charitable, and fund-raising cookbooks) are a unique genre of culinary literature. Community cookbooks focus on home cooking, often documenting regional, ethnic, family, and societal traditions, as well as local history.^[12] Gooseberry Patch has been publishing community-style cookbooks since 1992 and built their brand on this community.

Cookbooks can also document the food of a specific chef (particularly in conjunction with a cooking show) or restaurant. Many of these books, particularly those written by or for a well-established cook with a long-running TV show or popular restaurant, become part of extended series of books that can be released over the course of many years. Popular chef-authors throughout history include people such as Julia Child, James Beard, Nigella Lawson, Edouard de Pomiane, Jeff Smith, Emeril Lagasse, Claudia Roden, Madhur Jaffrey, Katsuyo Kobayashi, and possibly even Apicius, the semi-pseudonymous author of the Roman cookbook De re coquinaria, who shared a name with at least one other famous food figure of the ancient world.

While western cookbooks usually group recipes for main courses by the main ingredient of the dishes, Japanese cookbooks usually group them by cooking techniques (e.g., fried foods, steamed foods, and grilled foods). Both styles of cookbook have additional recipe groupings such as soups, sweets.

Famous cookbooks[link]

Famous cookbooks from the past, in chronological order, include:

• De re coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) (late 4th / early 5th century) by Apicius
• Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes) (10th century) by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq
• Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Dishes) (1226) by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi
• Liber de Coquina (The Book of Cookery) (late 13th / early 14th century) by two unknown authors from France and Italy
• Forme of Cury (14th century) by the Master Cooks of King Richard II of England
• Viandier (14th century) by Guillaume Tirel alias Taillevent
• De honesta voluptate et valetudine (1475) by Bartolomeo Platina - the first cookbook printed in a native language (Italian) in 1487
• The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Knight Opened by Kenelm Digby (1669)
• The Compleat Housewife (first American edition 1742) by Eliza Smith
• The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy (1747) by Hannah Glasse
• Hjelpreda I Hushållningen För Unga Fruentimber (1755) by Cajsa Warg
• Le Cuisinier Royal (1817) by Alexandre Viard
• Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845) by Eliza Acton
• Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) by Mrs Beeton
• El Cocinero Puerto - Riqueño 1859 (author unknown)
• La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiar bene (1891) by Pellegrino Artusi
• The Epicurean (1894) by Charles Ranhofer
• The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) by Fannie Merritt Farmer
• The Settlement Cook Book (1901) and 34 subsequent editions by Lizzie Black Kander
• Various cookbooks (between 1903 and 1934) by Auguste Escoffier
• The Joy of Cooking (1931) by Irma Rombauer
• Larousse Gastronomique (1938)
• The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954) by Alice B. Toklas
• Cooking with the Chinese Flavor (1956) and subsequent books by Lin Tsuifeng ("Mrs. Lin Yutang")
• Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) by Julia Child
• Helen Gurley Brown's Single Girl's Cookbook (1969) by Helen Gurley Brown
• The Fanny and Johnnie Cradock Cookery Programme (1970) by Fanny and Johnnie Cradock
• Diet for a Small Planet (1971) by Frances Moore Lappé
• Moosewood Cookbook (1978) by Mollie Katzen
• "The French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook (2010) by Mireille Guiliano

Usage outside the world of food[link]

The term cookbook is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to any book containing a straightforward set of already tried and tested "recipes" or instructions for a specific field or activity, presented in detail so that the users who are not necessarily expert in the field can produce workable results. Examples include a set of circuit designs in electronics, a book of magic spells, or The Anarchist Cookbook, a set of instructions on destruction and living outside the law. O'Reilly Media publishes a series of books about computer programming named the Cookbook series, and each of these books contain hundreds of ready to use, cut and paste examples to solve a specific problem in a single programming language.

See also[link]

• Food writing
• Gourmet Museum and Library

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Adamson, Melitta Weiss Food in Medieval Times. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. 2004. ISBN 0-313-32147-7
• Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays. Melitta Weiss Adamson (editor). Garland, New York. 1995. ISBN 0-8153-1345-4
• Regional Cuisines of Medieval Europe: A Book of Essays. edited by Melitta Weiss Adamson (editor). Routledge, New York. 2002. ISBN 0-415-92994-6
• What’s the Recipe? - Our hunger for cookbooks., Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 2009.

External links[link]

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Table of Contents

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Cookbooks

• The Food and Cookery Collection of the Fales Library at NYU
• Books for Cooks - a learning resource on the history of cookery books from the British Library
• Feeding America at Michigan State University Digital Library -- a collection of influential early American cookbooks, including a large number of books specializing in immigrant cuisine
• Home Economics (including cookbooks) at Project Gutenberg
• Menus and Cookbooks at The New York Public Library
• Bibliography of Creole & Cajun Cookbooks at Nola Cuisine

This article's lead section may not adequately summarize its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (March 2012)

Julia Child

1988 portrait of Julia Child by Elsa Dorfman
Born	(1912-08-15)August 15, 1912 Pasadena, California
Died	August 13, 2004(2004-08-13) (aged 91) Montecito, California
Cooking style	French
Education	Smith College B.A. English 1934 Le Cordon Bleu Le Grand Diplôme
Spouse	Paul Cushing Child (m. 1946–1994) «start: (1946)–end+1: (1995)»"Marriage: Paul Cushing Child to Julia Child" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Julia_Child) Married September 1, 1946
Television show(s) The French Chef, "Julia Child: bon appétit", Julia Child & Company, Dinner at Julia's, Cooking with Master Chefs, In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, Baking with Julia, Julia Child & Jacques Pépin Cooking at Home
Award(s) won Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Service Show Host 1996 In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs 2001 Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home Emmy Award for Achievements in Educational Television—Individuals 1966 The French Chef Peabody Award 1965 The French Chef National Book Award, Current Interest 1980 Julia Child and More Company

Julia Child (née McWilliams;^[1] August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963.

In 1996, Julia Child was ranked #46 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.^[2]

Childhood and education[link]

Child was born Julia Carolyn McWilliams in Pasadena, California, the daughter of John McWilliams, Jr., a Princeton University graduate and prominent land manager, and his wife, the former Julia Carolyn ("Caro") Weston, a paper-company heiress whose father, Byron Curtis Weston, served as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. The eldest^[3] of three children, she had a brother, John III (1914–2002), and a sister, Dorothy Dean (1917–2006).^[4]

Child attended Westridge School, Polytechnic School from fourth grade to ninth grade, then The Katherine Branson School in Ross, California, which was at the time a boarding school. At six feet, two inches (1.88 m) tall, Child played tennis, golf, and basketball as a child and continued to play sports while attending Smith College, from which she graduated in 1934 with a major in English.^[1] A press release issued by Smith in 2004 states that her major was history.^[5]

Following her graduation from college, Child moved to New York City, where she worked as a copywriter for the advertising department of upscale home-furnishing firm W. & J. Sloane. Returning to California in 1937, she spent the next four years writing for local publications, working in advertising, and volunteering with the Junior League of Pasadena^[6].

World War II[link]

Child joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after finding that she was too tall to enlist in the Women's Army Corps (WACs) or in the U.S. Navy's WAVES.^[7] She began her OSS career as a typist at its headquarters in Washington, but because of her education and experience soon was given a more responsible position as a top secret researcher working directly for the head of OSS, General William J. Donovan.^[8] As a research assistant in the Secret Intelligence division, she typed 10,000 names on white note cards to keep track of officers. For a year, she worked at the OSS Emergency Rescue Equipment Section (ERES) in Washington, D.C. as a file clerk and then as an assistant to developers of a shark repellent needed to ensure that sharks would not explode ordnance targeting German U-boats. In 1944 she was posted to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where her responsibilities included "registering, cataloging and channeling a great volume of highly classified communications" for the OSS's clandestine stations in Asia.^[9] She was later posted to China, where she received the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service as head of the Registry of the OSS Secretariat.^[10] For her service, Child received an award that cited her many virtues, including her "drive and inherent cheerfulness."^[8] As with other OSS records, Child's file was declassified in 2008, and, unlike other files, her complete file is available online.^[11]

While in Ceylon, she met Paul Cushing Child, also an OSS employee, and the two were married September 1, 1946 in Lumberville, Pennsylvania,^[12] later moving to Washington, D.C. Child, a New Jersey native^[13] who had lived in Paris as an artist and poet, was known for his sophisticated palate,^[14] and introduced his wife to fine cuisine. He joined the United States Foreign Service and in 1948 the couple moved to Paris when the US State Department assigned Paul there as an exhibits officer with the United States Information Agency.^[10] The couple had no children.

Post-war France[link]

Child repeatedly recalled her first meal in Rouen as a culinary revelation; once, she described the meal of oysters, sole meunière, and fine wine to The New York Times as "an opening up of the soul and spirit for me." In Paris she attended the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and later studied privately with Max Bugnard and other master chefs. She joined the women's cooking club Cercle des Gourmettes; through the club she met Simone Beck, who was writing a French cookbook for Americans with her friend Louisette Bertholle. Beck proposed that Child work with them, to make the book appeal to Americans.

In 1951, Child, Beck, and Bertholle began to teach cooking to American women in Child's Paris kitchen, calling their informal school L'école des trois gourmandes (The School of the Three Food Lovers). For the next decade, as the Childs moved around Europe and finally to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the three researched and repeatedly tested recipes. Child translated the French into English, making the recipes detailed, interesting, and practical.

In 1963, the Childs built a home near the Provence town of Plascassier in the hills above Cannes on property belonging to co-author Simone Beck and her husband, Jean Fischbacher. The Childs named it "La Pitchoune", a Provençal word meaning "the little one" but over time the property was often affectionately referred to simply as "La Peetch".^[15]

Books and television[link]

Julia Child at the Miami Book Fair International of 1989

The three would-be authors initially signed a contract with publisher Houghton Mifflin, which later rejected the manuscript for seeming too much like an encyclopedia. Finally, when it was first published in 1961 by Alfred A. Knopf, the 734-page Mastering the Art of French Cooking was a best-seller and received critical acclaim that derived in part from the American interest in French culture in the early 1960s. Lauded for its helpful illustrations and precise attention to detail, and for making fine cuisine accessible, the book is still in print and is considered a seminal culinary work. Following this success, Child wrote magazine articles and a regular column for The Boston Globe newspaper. She would go on to publish nearly twenty titles under her name and with others. Many, though not all, were related to her television shows. Her last book was the autobiographical My Life in France, published posthumously in 2006 and written with her nephew, Alex Prud'homme. The book recounts Child's life with her husband, Paul Child, in post-World War II France.

[edit] The French Chef and related books

A 1962 appearance on a book review show on the National Educational Television (NET) station of Boston, WGBH, led to the inception of her first television cooking show after viewers enjoyed her demonstration of how to cook an omelette. The French Chef had its debut on February 11, 1963, on WGBH and was immediately successful. The show ran nationally for ten years and won Peabody and Emmy Awards, including the first Emmy award for an educational program. Though she was not the first television cook, Child was the most widely seen. She attracted the broadest audience with her cheery enthusiasm, distinctively charming warbly voice, and non-patronizing and unaffected manner.

In 1972, The French Chef became the first television program to be captioned for the deaf, albeit in the preliminary technology of open captioning.^[16]

Child's second book, The French Chef Cookbook, was a collection of the recipes she had demonstrated on the show. It was soon followed in 1971 by Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two, again in collaboration with Simone Beck, but not with Louisette Bertholle, with whom the professional relationship had ended.^[17] Child's fourth book, From Julia Child's Kitchen, was illustrated with her husband's photographs and documented the color series of The French Chef, as well as providing an extensive library of kitchen notes compiled by Child during the course of the show.

In 1981 she founded The American Institute of Wine & Food,^[18] with vintners Robert Mondavi and Richard Graff, and others, to "advance the understanding, appreciation and quality of wine and food," a pursuit she had already begun with her books and television appearances.

Later shows and books[link]

In the 1970s and 1980s, she was the star of numerous television programs, including Julia Child & Company, Julia Child & More Company and Dinner at Julia's. For the 1979 book Julia Child and More Company she won a National Book Award in category Current Interest.^[19] During those years she also produced what she considered her magnum opus, a book and instructional video series collectively entitled The Way To Cook, which was published in 1989.

Julia Child at KUHT

She starred in four more series in the 1990s that featured guest chefs: Cooking with Master Chefs, In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, Baking With Julia, and Julia Child & Jacques Pépin Cooking at Home. She collaborated with Jacques Pépin many times for television programs and cookbooks. All of Child's books during this time stemmed from the television series of the same names.

Child's use of ingredients like butter and cream has been questioned by food critics and modern-day nutritionists. She addressed these criticisms throughout her career, predicting that a "fanatical fear of food" would take over the country's dining habits, and that focusing too much on nutrition takes the pleasure from enjoying food.^[20][21] In a 1990 interview, Child said, "Everybody is overreacting. If fear of food continues, it will be the death of gastronomy in the United States. Fortunately, the French don't suffer from the same hysteria we do. We should enjoy food and have fun. It is one of the simplest and nicest pleasures in life."^[22]

Home as television set[link]

Julia Child's kitchen

Julia Child's kitchen, designed by her husband, was the setting for three of her television shows. It is now on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Beginning with In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, the Childs' home kitchen in Cambridge was fully transformed into a functional set, with TV-quality lighting, three cameras positioned to catch all angles in the room, and a massive center island with a gas stovetop on one side and an electric stovetop on the other, but leaving the rest of the Childs' appliances alone, including "my wall oven with its squeaking door."^[23] This kitchen backdrop hosted nearly all of Child's 1990s television series.

Other appearances[link]

She appeared in an episode of This Old House as designer of the kitchen. This Old House was launched in 1979 by Russell Morash, who helped create The French Chef with Julia Child.^[24]

Awards[link]

Emmy Awards[link]

1. 1966: Achievements in Educational Television- Individuals for The French Chef, won
2. 1972: Special Classification of Outstanding Program and Individual Achievement – General Programming for The French Chef, nominated
3. 1994: Outstanding Informational Series for Cooking with Master Chefs, nominated

Daytime Emmy Awards[link]

1. 1996: Outstanding Service Show Host for In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, won
2. 1997: Outstanding Service Show Host for Baking with Julia, nominated
3. 1999: Outstanding Service Show Host for Baking with Julia, nominated
4. 2000: Outstanding Service Show Host for Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home, nominated
5. 2001: Outstanding Service Show Host for Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home, won

Peabody Awards[link]

1. 1965: Personal Award for The French Chef, won

U.S. National Book Awards[link]

1. 1980: Current Interest (hardcover) for Julia Child and More Company, won^[19]

In popular culture[link]

Child was a favorite of audiences from the moment of her television debut on public television in 1963, and she was a familiar part of American culture and the subject of numerous references. In 1966 she was featured on the cover of Time with the heading, "Our Lady of the Ladle." Then in the classic 1968 thriller, No Way to Treat a Lady, she was mentioned by Lee Remick's character Kate Palmer as " that Julia Child woman " that she ( Kate ) was desirious to take cooking tips from to prepare gourmet meals in order to impress her new boyfriend Detective Morriss Brummell, played by George Segal.

In a 1978 Saturday Night Live sketch (episode 74^[25]), she was parodied by Dan Aykroyd continuing with a cooking show despite ludicrously profuse bleeding from a cut to his thumb, and eventually expiring while advising "Save the liver". Child reportedly loved this sketch so much she showed it to friends at parties.^{[citation needed]}

Jean Stapleton portrayed her in a 1989 musical, Bon Appétit!, based on one of her televised cooking lessons. The title derived from her famous TV sign-off: "This is Julia Child. Bon appétit!" She was the inspiration for the character "Julia Grownup" on the Children's Television Workshop program, The Electric Company (1971–1977), and was portrayed (or more accurately, parodied) in many other television and radio programs and skits, including The Cosby Show (1984–1992) by character Heathcliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) and Garrison Keillor's radio series A Prairie Home Companion by voice actor Tim Russell. Julia Child's TV show is briefly portrayed in the 1986 movie, The Money Pit starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long; the 1985 Madonna film Desperately Seeking Susan and the 1991 comedy Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead. In 1993, she was the voice of Dr. Juliet Bleeb in the children's film We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story. Child's TV show was also featured in the 1993 movie Mrs. Doubtfire, when Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire (Robin Williams) is watching the show to learn gourmet cooking.

In 2002, Child was the inspiration for "The Julie/Julia Project," a popular cooking blog by Julie Powell that was the basis of Powell's 2005 bestselling book, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, the paperback version of which was retitled Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.^[26][27] The blog and book, along with Child's own memoir, in turn inspired the 2009 feature film Julie & Julia. (Meryl Streep portrayed Child in half the narrative.) Child is reported to have been unimpressed by Powell's blog, believing Powell's determination to cook every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year to be a stunt. Child's editor, Judith Jones, said in an interview: "Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn't attractive, to me or Julia. She didn't want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt. She would never really describe the end results, how delicious it was, and what she learned. Julia didn’t like what she called 'the flimsies.' She didn't suffer fools, if you know what I mean."^[28]

Retirement[link]

Signature of Julia Child

After the death of her beloved friend Simone Beck, Child relinquished La Peetch after a month long stay in June 1992 with her niece, Phila, and her family. She turned the keys over to Jean Fischbacher's sister, just as she and Paul had promised nearly 30 years earlier. Paul, who was ten years older, died in 1994 after living in a nursing home for five years following a series of strokes in 1989.^[29]

In 2001, she moved to a retirement community in Santa Barbara, California, donating her house and office to Smith College, which later sold the house.^[30] She donated her kitchen, which her husband designed with high counters to accommodate her formidable height, and which served as the set for three of her television series, to the National Museum of American History, where it is now on display.^[31] Her iconic copper pots and pans were on display at COPIA in Napa, California, until August 2009 when they were reunited with her kitchen at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

In 2000, Child received the French Legion of Honor^[32][33] and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.^[34] She was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003. Child also received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, Johnson & Wales University in 1995, her alma mater Smith College, Brown University in 2000,^[35] and several other universities.

Death[link]

On August 13, 2004, Julia Child died of kidney failure at her retirement community home, Casa Dorinda, in Montecito, two days before her 92nd birthday.^[36] Child ended her last book, My Life in France, with "... thinking back on it now reminds that the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite – toujours bon appétit!"^[29]

Films[link]

On August 18, 2004, a documentary filmed during her lifetime premiered. Produced by WGBH, the one-hour feature, Julia Child! America's Favorite Chef, was aired as the first episode of the 18th season of the PBS series American Masters. The film combined archive footage of Child with current footage from those who influenced and were influenced by her life and work.^[37][38]

A film adapted by Nora Ephron from Child's memoir My Life in France and from Julie Powell's memoir, and directed by Ephron, Julie & Julia, was released on August 7, 2009. Meryl Streep played Child; her performance was nominated for numerous awards, winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical or Comedy.

A film titled Primordial Soup With Julia Child was on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Life in The Universe gallery from 1976 until the gallery closed.^[39]

She also voiced the character Doctor Juliet Bleeb, an eccentric Museum of Natural History employee in the children's movie We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story.

Public works[link]

Television series[link]

• The French Chef (1963–1973)
• Julia Child & Company (1978–1979)
• Julia Child & More Company (1980–1982)
• Dinner at Julia's (1983–1985)
• The Way To Cook (1989) six one-hour videocassettes
• A Birthday Party for Julia Child: Compliments to the Chef (1992)
• Cooking with Master Chefs: Hosted by Julia Child (1993–1994) 16 episodes
• Cooking In Concert: Julia Child & Jacques Pepin (1993)
• In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs (1994–1996), 39 episodes
• Cooking in Concert: Julia Child & Jacques Pepin (1995) ^[40]
• Baking with Julia (1996–1998) 39 episodes
• Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home (1999–2000) 22 episodes
• Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom, (2000) two-hour special

DVD releases[link]

• Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom (2000)
• Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home (2003)
• Julia Child: America's Favorite Chef (2004)
• The French Chef: Volume One (2005)
• The French Chef: Volume Two (2005)
• Julia Child! The French Chef (2006)
• The Way To Cook (2009)
• Baking With Julia (2009)
• Julie & Julia (2010)

Books[link]

• Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle—ISBN 0-375-41340-5
• The French Chef Cookbook (1968)—ISBN 0-394-40135-2
• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two (1970), with Simone Beck—ISBN 0-394-40152-2
• From Julia Child's Kitchen (1975)—ISBN 0-517-20712-5
• Julia Child & Company (1978)—ISBN 0-345-31449-2
• Julia Child & More Company (1979)—ISBN 0-345-31450-6
• The Way To Cook (1989)—ISBN 0-394-53264-3
• Julia Child's Menu Cookbook (1991), one-volume edition of Julia Child & Company and Julia Child & More Company—ISBN 0-517-06485-5
• Cooking With Master Chefs (1993)—ISBN 0-679-74829-6
• In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs (1995)—ISBN 0-679-43896-3
• Baking with Julia (1996)—ISBN 0-688-14657-0
• Julia's Delicious Little Dinners (1998)—ISBN 0-375-40336-1
• Julia's Menus For Special Occasions (1998)—ISBN 0-375-40338-8
• Julia's Breakfasts, Lunches & Suppers (1999)—ISBN 0-375-40339-6
• Julia's Casual Dinners (1999)—ISBN 0-375-40337-X
• Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home (1999), with Jacques Pépin—ISBN 0-375-40431-7
• Julia's Kitchen Wisdom (2000)—ISBN 0-375-41151-8
• My Life in France (2006, posthumous), with Alex Prud'homme—ISBN 1-4000-4346-8
• (collected in) American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes, ed. Molly O'Neill (Library of America, 2007) ISBN 1-59853-005-4

By Others[link]

• Barr, Nancy Verde (28 March 2008). Backstage with Julia: My Years with Julia Child. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-27637-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=nMEN6E_HPr8C. Retrieved 14 October 2011. 
• Conant, Jennet (5 April 2011). A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4391-6352-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=I6mW-aqF138C. Retrieved 14 October 2011. 
• Fitch, Noel Riley (13 April 1999). Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child. Random House Digital, Inc.. ISBN 978-0-385-49383-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=GDDYYhUS4i0C. Retrieved 14 October 2011. 
• Painter, Charlotte; Valois, Pamela (1985). Gifts of age: portraits and essays of 32 remarkable women. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-87701-368-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=pgKxAAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 14 October 2011. 
• Reardon, Joan (1 December 2010). As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-41771-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZLobsQtg3W8C. Retrieved 14 October 2011. 
• Shapiro, Laura (1 August 2009). Julia Child: A Life. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-311644-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=mloe4yhNct8C. Retrieved 14 October 2011. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Julia Child

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Julia Child

• Julia Child at the Internet Movie Database
• Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs from PBS
• Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian
• American television interview with Julia Child on June 25, 1999, at Google Video
• Coverage of Julia Child in The New York Times
• Interview in Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
• JULIA CHILD: 1912–2004 TV's French chef taught us how to cook with panache, Obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle
• The IMDb page for the film "Julie & Julia" starring Meryl Streep
• Julia Child Papers.Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
• Works by or about Julia Child in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• "Live Eat Enjoy: A Visit With Julia Child", Ms. Magazine Summer 2003
• "No beef with Julia’s kitchen: Her home’s new owner lacks the bone appetite", The Boston Globe August 31, 2009

Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow at the 68th Venice Film Festival, September 2011
Born	Gwyneth Kate Paltrow[1] (1972-09-27) September 27, 1972 (age 39)[2] Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress, singer, author
Years active	1990–present
Spouse	Chris Martin (m. 2003) «start: (2003)»"Marriage: Chris Martin to Gwyneth Paltrow" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Gwyneth_Paltrow)
Children	2
Parents	Bruce Paltrow (deceased) Blythe Danner
Relatives	Jake Paltrow (brother) Katherine Moennig (cousin)

Gwyneth Kate Paltrow ( /ˈɡwɪnɨθ ˈpæltroʊ/; born September 27, 1972) is an American actress and singer.^[3][4] She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Seven (1995) and Emma (1996) (in which she played the title role). Following the films Sliding Doors (1998) and A Perfect Murder (1998), Paltrow garnered worldwide recognition through her performance in Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, for Outstanding Lead Actress and as a member of the Outstanding Cast. She also won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2011 for her role as Holly Holliday on the Fox hit TV show Glee in the episode "The Substitute".

Paltrow has portrayed supporting as well as lead roles in films such as The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Shallow Hal (2001), and Proof (2005), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in Motion Picture Drama. Since 2008, she has portrayed Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starring in Iron Man and its sequel, Iron Man 2 (2010), and also appearing in The Avengers (2012). Paltrow has been the face of Estée Lauder's Pleasures perfume since 2005. She is married to Chris Martin, the lead vocalist of Coldplay. They have two children together, Apple and Moses. She is also the face of American fashion brand Coach,^[5] owner of the lifestyle company Goop.com^[6] and author of the cookbook My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness.^[7]

Early life[link]

Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of actress Blythe Danner and film producer/director Bruce Paltrow. Her father was Jewish (of Russian Ashkenazi origin),^[8][9] and her mother is a Quaker of Pennsylvania Dutch and more distant white Barbadian ancestry.^[10][11][12] Paltrow's paternal great-great-grandfather, whose surname was "Paltrowicz," was a rabbi in Nowogród, Poland.^[13] Paltrow has a younger brother, Jake Paltrow, and is a half-cousin of actress Katherine Moennig, and a second cousin of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08).^[14]

Paltrow was raised in Santa Monica, where she attended Crossroads School, before enrolling in The Spence School, a private girls' school in New York City.^[15] Later, she briefly studied art history at University of California in Santa Barbara, before dropping out to act.^[16] She is an "adopted daughter" of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where at 15 she spent a year as an exchange student and learned to speak Spanish.^{[17][clarification needed][18]}

Career[link]

1990–1995: Early work[link]

After spending several summers watching her mother perform at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, Paltrow made her professional stage debut there in 1990.^[16] Her film debut followed with Shout (1991), starring John Travolta, and she was cast by Steven Spielberg in his film Hook (1991), as the young Wendy Darling.^[16] Paltrow's next roles were in two made-for-television films: Cruel Doubt (1992) and Deadly Relations (1993). Her first plum supporting role in a big-screen film was in the 1993 drama Flesh and Bone, where she played the much-younger girlfriend of James Caan. In the hit thriller Seven (1995), she played Brad Pitt's wife. Paltrow's character was the high school sweetheart of Pitt's, even though she is nine years younger than him in real life. Her performance earned her a Satellite Award nomination. Also in 1995, she appeared in Moonlight and Valentino and Jefferson in Paris.

1996–2001: Breakthrough and film stardom[link]

Paltrow at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival

Paltrow's first role as the central lead was the title role in Emma (1996), for which she received critical acclaim. She had leading roles in several films throughout 1998, including Sliding Doors and the adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations with Ethan Hawke, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft and Chris Cooper. She also appeared in two thrillers, Hush opposite Jessica Lange and A Perfect Murder inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, Dial M for Murder. Paltrow appeared opposite Michael Douglas as Emily Taylor, based on Grace Kelly's character from the original film, though the film was met with mixed reviews.^[19]

In 1998, Paltrow starred in Shakespeare in Love, portraying the fictional lover of William Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes. The film earned more than US$100 million in box office receipts in the United States, and Paltrow gained critical acclaim for her portrayal. Entertainment Weekly commented, "Best of all is Gwyneth Paltrow, who, at long last, has a movie to star in that's as radiant as she is."^[20] The New York Times summed up her turn as Viola as such: "Gwyneth Paltrow, in her first great, fully realized starring performance, makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light."^[21] The award-winning Shakespeare in Love^[22][23] earned Paltrow the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role from the Screen Actors Guild,^[24] the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress^[24] and the Academy Award for Best Actress, among other honors.^[23] Her Pink Ralph Lauren dress worn at the 71st Academy Awards in collecting her Oscar was extremely popular and was credited for bringing pink back into fashion.^[25]

In 1999, Paltrow co-starred alongside Jude Law, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett in The Talented Mr. Ripley, which earned $80 million domestically and received positive reviews.^[26] She showcased her singing ability in 2000's Duets, which was directed by her father and co-starred singer Huey Lewis. The same year, Paltrow co-starred with Ben Affleck in the romantic drama Bounce as Abby Janello. In 2001, she played Margot Tenenbaum as part of an ensemble cast in the Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums and starred with Jack Black in the comedy Shallow Hal, where she had to wear a specially designed 25-pound fatsuit and heavy make-up.

2002–2007: Career down[link]

Paltrow at a ceremony for receiving her Hollywood Walk of Fame star, December 2010

Since the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, Paltrow's film success has been less noteworthy.^[27] She said she was unequipped for the pressure, leading to several bad movie choices,^[28] agreeing with peers who believe the win is, in some ways, a curse.^[29] During this time, Paltrow rarely appeared in films, having taken a career hiatus to raise her family.^[15] In The Guardian, she said she divided her career into movies for love and films for money: The Royal Tenenbaums, Proof, and Sylvia fell into the former category, while she did View from the Top and Shallow Hal for the latter.^[18] In 2004, she appeared in the science-fiction film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow opposite Jude Law. The same year, she was recognized as an outstanding woman in entertainment by Women in Film Los Angeles with the Crystal Award.^[30] In 2005, she appeared in the film Proof as the depressed daughter of a brilliant, eccentric mathematician. The movie is based on the play of the same name, in which Paltrow also played the same character at London's Donmar Warehouse in 2002. For her performance Paltrow earned her second Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. In 2006, she had small roles in Running With Scissors and Infamous, in which she sang Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?".

2008–present: Career comeback[link]

In 2008, she appeared in the superhero film Iron Man as Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's closest friend, budding love interest, and business partner.^[31] Iron Man is Paltrow's highest-grossing film to date, earning more than $585,000,000 worldwide.^[32] Paltrow said she was hesitant to appear in a big-budget project but she was won over by Robert Downey Jr., the film's lead, and director Jon Favreau. She recalled a conversation with Downey, saying:^[33]

Robert called me and he said, 'This is gonna be fun, and this is gonna be good.' And then he said to me, 'Don't you want to be in a movie that people see?' And I was like, 'Whoa! What would that feel like?' And he's right. Moviemaking is not supposed to be a masturbatory exercise; it's supposed to be shared by other people.

In 2010, Paltrow reprised her role in the sequel to Iron Man, Iron Man 2. Later in 2010, she appeared in the musical Country Strong and recorded the song Country Strong for the film's soundtrack.^[34] The song was released to country radio in August 2010.^[35] At the 83rd Academy Awards, Paltrow performed another song from the movie, "Coming Home," which was nominated for Best Original Song.^[36] She also appeared in Fox's Glee, as substitute teacher Holly Holliday, who fills in for Matthew Morrison's character when he falls ill. In her first episode, "The Substitute," she sang "Nowadays" from the musical Chicago with Lea Michele, Cee Lo Green's "Forget You", and a mash-up of "Singin' In the Rain" and Rihanna's "Umbrella" with Morrison and the rest of the cast.^[37] She later performed "Forget You" with Cee-Lo Green himself and several puppet characters provided by the Jim Henson Company at the 2011 Grammy Awards.^[38] She reprised her role twice more that season, performing "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" by Gary Glitter, an acoustic version of "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac, "Kiss" by Prince, and Adele's "Turning Tables". In 2011, Paltrow appeared in the Steven Soderbergh thriller Contagion, in which she was part of an ensemble cast, including Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard and her The Talented Mr. Ripley co-stars Matt Damon and Jude Law ^[39]. The movie opened at number 1 at the US Box Office Weekend and received positive reviews. In 2012 she stars in the independent romantic comedy Thanks for Sharing with Mark Ruffalo and reprised her role as Pepper Potts in the film The Avengers, which broke records as the highest grossing U.S. opening weekend film of all time. It was confirmed that Paltrow will star in a Spanish film alongside Antonio Banderas to shoot in late 2012.

Other projects[link]

Paltrow on the 84th Academy Awards Red Carpet 2012

Paltrow is a Save the Children artist ambassador, raising awareness about World Pneumonia Day.^[40] She is on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that works to alleviate poverty in New York City.^[41] In February 2009, Paltrow received a Grammy nomination for her reading of the classic bear books of author Bill Martin, Jr.^[42]

Paltrow had her singing debut in the 2000 film Duets, in which she performed a cover version of Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin'". The song was released as a single. The song went to number one in Australia, while Paltrow's rendition of the Kim Carnes classic "Bette Davis Eyes" reached number three.^{[citation needed]} In the 2006 film Infamous, she sang "What Is This Thing Called Love". On September 27, 2006, Paltrow sang with rapper Jay-Z during his concert at Royal Albert Hall. She sang the chorus for "Song Cry", from the rapper's album Blueprint.^[43] In an interview, she said she would be at the concert but not that she would perform. She was quoted as saying "I'm a Jay-Z fan. He's my best friend."^[44]

In May 2005, Paltrow became the face of Estée Lauder's Pleasures perfume. She appeared in Chicago on August 17, 2007, to sign bottles of the perfume, and on July 8, 2008, she promoted Lauder's Sensuous perfume in New York with the company's three other models.^[45] Estée Lauder donates a minimum of $500,000 of sales of items from the 'Pleasures Gwyneth Paltrow' collection to breast cancer research.^[46] In 2006, she became the face for Bean Pole International, a Korean fashion brand.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2007, she signed for a PBS television series Spain... on the road Again with Mario Batali that showcases the food and culture of Spain.^[47] In September 2008, she launched a weekly lifestyle newsletter, Goop, encouraging readers to 'nourish the inner aspect'. The website's title is derived from the initials of her first and last names.^[48] Each week, the newsletter focuses on an action: Make, Go, Get, Do, Be, and See. It has been ridiculed by E-Online,^[49] Vanity Fair,^[50] The Independent,^[51] and the UK's Daily Mirror.^[52]

Personal life[link]

At the age of 24, Paltrow was engaged for six months to actor Brad Pitt, whom she dated from December 1994 to June 1997.^[53] The engagement was called off, according to Paltrow, because she was not ready for marriage, and she later felt responsible for hurting Pitt since she was "such a mess" during that time in her life.^[54] Paltrow has since said that, as this was her first high-profile relationship with another celebrity, it taught her the need for public discretion about her romantic life; she told Biography magazine, "I said things about being in a relationship [with Brad Pitt] that felt wrong to me even as I was saying them."^[55]

Paltrow had an on-off three-year relationship with actor Ben Affleck from 1997 to late 2000.^[56] Soon after their breakup, Paltrow convinced Affleck to work in the film Bounce with her;^[57] during the making of the film, which was shot in mid 1999, the couple started dating again and eventually broke up in October 2000.^[56]

In October 2002, Paltrow met Chris Martin of the British rock group Coldplay backstage three weeks after the death of her father, Bruce Paltrow. They married on December 5, 2003, in a ceremony at a hotel in Southern California.^[58] On May 14, 2004, the couple had their first child, a girl named Apple Blythe Alison Martin. Paltrow explained the unusual first name on Oprah, saying: "It sounded so sweet and it conjured such a lovely picture for me – you know, apples are so sweet and they're wholesome and it's biblical – and I just thought it sounded so lovely and … clean! And I just thought, 'Perfect!'"^[59]

Her second child, a boy named Moses Bruce Anthony Martin, was born on April 8, 2006, in New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital.^[60] Her son's first name was explained as the song, titled "Moses", that her husband wrote for her before their wedding.^[60] Paltrow has stated that she cut down on work after becoming a mother.^[61] She has also said that she suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her second child.^[62]

In 2010, she suffered a severe tibial plateau fracture, due to a vitamin D deficiency and osteopenia.^[63]

Paltrow discovered in 2011 that her father's family came from a long line of influential East European rabbis, and that inspired her to raise her daughter and son in a Jewish environment.^[64]

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

Singles[link]

Featured singles[link]

Album appearances[link]

Music videos[link]

References[link]