My historical novel:
Releases September 2025. Pre-order on Amazon.
It was an honor to write about the vivacious Julia Child. This biographical novel covers 20 years of Julia's life, starting in 1941. Julia served during WWII in the OSS, which was the precursor to the CIA. Julia's assignment took her to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and there she met her future husband, Paul Child. No, Julia didn't take cooking seriously until she was married. After some cooking classes, and many trials and errors, she dedicated herself to perfecting recipes. Once she moved to Paris with her husband for his work assignment, she promptly fell in love with French cuisine. There was no turning back for her. It would take her nearly ten years to see her coauthored cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, on the shelves. Her personality was larger-than-life, and after a guest television spot to promote her new cookbook, she was offered a cooking show series at a public television station, which would be known as The French Chef.
Summary:
Before she stepped into the spotlight as a master of French cooking, Julia Child navigated the shadows as a WWII intelligence officer.
On the sunny shores of California, Julia McWilliams is poised to embrace a life of comfort and financial security, with a marriage proposal from a wealthy man to consider. But as World War II erupts in the US, her patriotic fervor compels her to abandon her secure future. Trading country clubs for covert codes, Julia joins the Office of Strategic Services, where her sharp mind aids the Allied cause in the shadowy realm of espionage.
Amid strategic missions in Ceylon and China, Julia crosses paths with Paul Child, a fellow OSS officer whose delight in art, culture, and cuisine awakens a new hunger within her. Their chance meetings ignite a spark that blossoms into romance, leading to a proposal that Julia eagerly accepts. Together they embark on a new chapter in postwar Paris.
In the City of Light, Julia grapples with a different kind of challenge: she refuses to be confined by the societal expectations of a married woman. Drawn to the tantalizing world of French gastronomy—a pursuit her peers deem superfluous—she enrolls at the famed Le Cordon Bleu, and with Paul’s unwavering support, Julia immerses herself in her new passion.
Facing skepticism and prejudice in the male-dominated kitchens of Paris, Julia’s resolve never falters. Her relentless pursuit of culinary mastery not only transforms her own life but also introduces a revolutionary change in kitchens throughout America. From intelligence officer to beloved chef, this is Julia’s extraordinary journey.
Afterword
The pilots of The French Chef ran in August 1962, and Julia watched them at home on her new television. She wasn’t overly impressed with her performance but felt determined to learn from them. Despite her self-criticism of how she looked too large on camera and how she appeared breathless, not to mention her habit of closing her eyes, the letters from the public poured in—delighted with her genuine personality.
With the pilots deemed successful, the production of The French Chef began in February 1963, recording at the breakneck speed of four shows each week. The debut day of the new television program was Monday, February 11, 1963, on Channel 2 at 8:00 p.m. (see this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JuliaChildonPBS). Julia cooked the “perfectly delicious dish” of boeuf bourguignon (Dearie by Bob Spitz, 341). Julia might have been fifty years old, but her career was just beginning.
It didn’t take long for Julia Child to become a household name, and by the fourth show, WGBH-TV was receiving hundreds of letters a day from viewers. Affiliates included “KQED in San Francisco, WQED in Pittsburgh, WPBT in South Florida, WHYY in Philadelphia . . .” were just a few to start (Spitz, 346).
The attention and acclaim overwhelmed Julia, especially when people stopped her in public to tell her how much they loved the show. This only made her more determined to prepare to the smallest detail and perfect each episode, with Paul as her right-hand assistant. Paul once said, “These evenings, when other folk are at the movies or the symphony or lectures, find Julie and me in our kitchen—me with a stopwatch in hand, and Julie at the stove—timing various sections of the next two shows” (Spitz, 347).
From the beginning of her television appearances, Julia refused to participate in commercialism of products on her show since it was considered educational television. She didn’t want to feel forced to endorse any products or services. If she liked a product, she used it, plain and simple.
On a return trip to France, Julia and Simca fell back into their close friendship, and Julia approached the topic of writing a second cookbook that would eventually become Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume Two. This would, of course, be authored by only Julia and Simca. Louisette’s personal life had become very complicated, not only from her terrible divorce, in which her husband had incurred hefty debts and fled the country, but she was also dealing with arthritis in her hands, which made cooking difficult (see Spitz, 372).
Eventually, Julia proposed a buyout plan for Louisette. Julia was happy that Louisette was getting a royalty share in their book, but the contract also entitled Louisette and “her heirs the right to exploit and determine the future direction of the copyright, and that was not fine by Julia” (Spitz, 388–389). The agreed upon buyout amount was $30,000, and in exchange, Louisette would relinquish all contract rights to the book (see 389). This amount came out of the advance that Julia received for Mastering the Art of Cooking, Volume Two.
In planning out volume two, Julia reasoned that they’d eliminated so many excellent recipes when creating volume one that she and Simca already had a head start on a second volume. The new cookbook topped off at 555 pages, with seven sections, which included thirty-eight pages on modern equipment that hadn’t been available when the first volume was published (Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child by Noël Riley Fitch, 360). Knopf published this second volume, releasing it October 22, 1970, with the first print run of 100,000 copies.
One of the most requested recipes that Julia received from her readers and viewers was for French bread. She’d attempted to make it plenty of times, of course, but she’d never truly succeeded. She would deflect her readers, saying that even in France, the French made a trip each day to the neighborhood boulangerie to buy their baguettes. But when editor Judith Jones made the request to include a French bread recipe in Mastering II, Julia could no longer brush it off. This led to a flurry of experiments, first conducted by Paul since Julia was entrenched in writing, and the recipe couldn’t be tested by Simca in France. It had to be a recipe that stood the test of American ingredients and American ovens.
Paul dove into what they called the “Great Bread Experiment” (Spitz, 382). His early attempts produced bread that was too hard and heavy and didn’t hit any of the requirements of the flawless crust, the right crumb, the delicious flavor, and the perfect color. Eventually, Julia joined Paul in the experiments, and between them, they had eighteen different methods they continued to tweak. It wasn’t until Julia and Simca arranged a tutorial session with Professor Raymond Clavel, a renowned authority on French bread, that Julia learned the secrets she’d so long been hunting for (see Spitz, 384). The final recipe? It was twenty pages long (see Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two, 54–74).
Throughout her television career, Julia received plenty of love and accolades as well as plenty of criticism. Cooking with wine on television was unheard of in the early 1960s, not to mention the audacity of a woman consuming alcohol on television. Over the years, and throughout many more cookbooks, Julia adapted and created recipes that would lend more to the health trends in America. Through it all, Julia stuck by her mantra of “moderation, moderation, moderation” (Spitz, 490) when she was scrutinized for the use of butter and other fats in her recipes. She called the naysayers against her French recipes “Nervous Nellies” (Spitz, 461), and she even adapted in later years by writing The Way to Cook, in which most of the main portions of the recipes were low calorie or fat-free (Spitz, 461).
For many years, Julia carried a proverbial weight of a culinary nemesis. Madeleine Kamman had issues with Julia that included claims—in criticism of The French Chef show—that Julia was “neither French nor a chef”—which, of course, Julia agreed with (see Fitch, 352). But the title of the television program was already set. And despite Julia and Kamman’s initial cordial friendship, Kamman took it upon herself to tell her students at her cooking school to destroy their copies of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and to never watch The French Chef (see Fitch, 352).
Kamman also loved to spread untrue rumors by telling industry professionals that Julia was retiring (see Spitz, 403). Julia had no trouble correcting Kamman’s misinformation and standing up for herself, but she was hurt that someone could be so vindictive. Julia got to the point where she refused to say the woman’s name anymore (see Spitz, 404).
After writing their second cookbook together, Julia and Simca didn’t coauthor again, but their friendship remained close. Julia and Paul spent most summers over the course of the next twenty-five years in France at La Pitchoune—a home they built on Simca’s property. The arrangement was that the Childs would pay for the construction and maintenance, but once they stopped using the home, it would revert to Simca’s family. The small house at La Pitchoune, completed in 1966, became a much needed refuge from Julia’s increasingly busy schedule.
In her later years, when Julia was involved in the 1993–1994 television series Cooking with Master Chefs, it was decided that the second series would be filmed in her own kitchen at 103 Irving Street. This suited Julia well and saved her from traveling so much. It turned her house into a film studio, per se, where Julia welcomed and hosted America’s chefs in her kitchen (watch the series here: https://www.youtube.com/@JuliaChildonPBS).
Paul’s decline in health came on gradually, and in 1974, he endured a series of nosebleeds, adding to other symptoms that had plagued him for some time, including chest pain and a constant ache in his left arm. He continued to brush off every symptom until he ended up at the hospital in October 1974 (see Spitz, 408–09). It was discovered that he needed bypass surgery. The surgery seemed to be successful, but his recovery was agonizingly slow, and new, troubling symptoms appeared. Paul’s speech had slurred, and he could no longer speak French. He had trouble moving and couldn’t stand straight. It was eventually determined that he’d suffered several strokes during his surgery.
Paul’s condition eventually improved, but he never made a full recovery. He could no longer serve as a support to Julia’s writing and traveling schedule, yet Julia insisted that Paul still accompany her in order to keep an eye on him, despite the challenges of his becoming increasingly forgetful and disoriented (see Fitch, 440–41). They were eventually able to resume their visits to La Pitchoune, but Paul had trouble reading and often asked Julia to read to him.
Unfortunately, while they were in France in July 1977, Freddie passed away from a heart attack (see Spitz 417). She was seventy-three years old. In 1981, determined to slow down in life, Julia and Paul bought a home on Seaview Drive in Montecito Shores in Santa Barbara (see Fitch, 416). It was a huge blow to Paul when his twin brother, Charlie, died in 1983. They’d been brothers and best friends for eighty-one years (see Fitch, 430). Another blow came when Simca died in December 1991 at the age of eighty-seven. Her death came as a grievous shock to Julia—her best friend and coauthor had been as close as a sister, and now nothing would be the same.
Although it was with a heavy heart, Julia finally had Paul move into an assisted-living facility, Fairlawn Nursing Home, in Lexington (see Spitz, 465). Paul’s confusion had returned, and his incidents of wandering and forgetfulness had become unmanageable without professional help (see Spitz, 485). Despite Julia’s grueling promotion schedule with another cookbook, she visited Paul every day that she was in Cambridge. Most of the time, he didn’t recognize her, but “she would climb in bed next to him and rub his head lovingly, filling him in on everything” (Spitz 470). She’d also call him every night, and she’d go along with whatever topic he wanted to talk about. Sometimes, he’d switch to fluent French—it seemed his language skills had returned (see Spitz, 471). Paul died May 12, 1994, at the age of ninety-two (see Spitz, 494).
In 2001, at the age of eighty-nine, Julia permanently moved to California, (see Spitz, 518). She agreed to donate her kitchen to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center, located in Washington DC, on the National Mall. She donated her house to Smith College and her papers and cookbook collection to the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe (see Spitz, 519).
With Julia permanently relocated to California, she took on another cat—a kitten, this time, that she named Minou. Even though pets were not allowed in her Montecito complex, Julia insisted, “My cat’s not going to bother anybody” (Julia’s Cats: Julia Child’s Life in the Company of Cats by Patricia Barey and Therese Burson, 133).
