7th Grade, 2nd Place - Julia Childs

Great Job Tiffany! This is a well thought out, well researched and very well written essay. All of the judges absolutely loved it! It is obvious you truly do admire Julia Childs. Keep cooking...and keep writing, both are talents you certainly seem to excel in! Kylie

Tiffany O.
Spring Creek Middle School
7th grade

If I could meet anyone in the world, from any country, during any time period, it would be Julia Childs. Julia Childs is a great role model and a lot like me. Julia was always happy, positive, and fearless, and of course loved to cook. Let me tell you why I think Julia Child represented these characteristics.

One: before she married Paul she was known as a very spontaneous, friendly party-girl; people adored her. Two: whenever Julia made a mistake on her show (The French Chef), she would simply put it back together. For instance, if she flipped an omelet and it fell apart, she would simply say, “Since you are in the kitchen, you can always put it back together, who is to see.” This is showing Julia Childs' positive attitude. Three: Julia Childs was fearless. During the war she got restless and decided to leave her comfortable home in California and join the WASP (Women Air Force Service Pilots). This was a program where women pilots scanned the air for enemy planes. Also, I don’t know about you, but anyone who can pierce a lobster between the eyes with a knife and not get sick or woozy is pretty fearless to me. Four: I would love to meet Julia Childs because she is a real chef, and I would enjoy learning from her. Not many people know this, but Julia was not always a chef. She spent most of her time avoiding cooking. To her it was a chore that was hard to master, but it was food that brought her and her husband together. They both shared the love of good cuisine.

Years into their marriage Paul and Julia moved to France. Julia was unable to have children and once again became antsy, so she started looking for a career. She thought it was about time she learned to cook, so she went to a cooking school called the "Cordon Bleu," where her whole life changed. Julia Childs took flight, and started to write her a cookbook with her two friends. “This is my advice to people, learn to cook, try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun!” said Julia Childs. Wouldn’t you want Julia Childs in your home? She could teach me so many things.

I would want Julia Childs to feel comfortable, so I would insist we meet at my house where I would invite her to come into the kitchen. I am sure Julia and I both share the love of the kitchen; it is a place where we can think, create, teach and say things out loud one might not otherwise say in front of others. You can create things in the kitchen that either turn out great or are a complete failure. But either way who’s to see your mistakes? The kitchen is not only a place to teach, but it is a place I learn. I learn coping skills, like when things don’t always go the way I want, I learn to manage. The kitchen is also a place to share your talents with others when you are done cooking, everyone loves to eat! This is why I think Julia Childs would feel most comfortable in the kitchen at my house.

Julia Childs would most likely be more comfortable if my kitchen were more like Julia’. I learned that Julia Child’s kitchen was designed by Paul to make it easy for Julia to have fun, stay organized and not be stressed out by the mess after cooking. The kitchen walls were a cream color and the cupboards were painted a greenish blue, easy to clean. On the right side of the room, one of the largest walls, there are many holes with hooks; each hook has a shape of a pot or pan traced around it so she knew where everything was. This was a great place for Julia to hang her kitchenware. There was also a large metal sink split into two sections, a white cutting board, an oven that was attached to a wall, and a circulator wooden table in the middle of the room with a tablecloth on top of the table for either meals or extra counter space. Julia donated her kitchen to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.

The first question I would ask Julia Childs is maybe something silly like, “What is your favorite thing to cook?” “What’s it like to be so tall?” Or, "what’s your middle name?” Maybe I would ask sophisticated questions such as, “How did the war affect your life?” “Why is it that you started out hating cooking?” “Did you ever have any other interests other than just cooking?” I may even ask questions about cooking. “How is it possible for tapioca pearls to create enough thickener for a pudding?” “What is the best recipe for French bread?” “What is yeast made out of?” “And how does it make bread rise.” But the first question I would ask would be, “What does it feel like when you have reached your goals and found success?”

I would like Julia to know how she changed American cooking and how she affected my life. Julia Childs was an amazing woman in many ways; she did things not just because she had to but because she enjoyed it! She loved life very much; Julia Childs shared her joy of life with others! Before Julia Childs came around with this amazingly yummy food, American food was becoming flash-frozen, pre-packaged, with one hundred ingredients that you can’t read, garbage! I call this the dark ages of American cuisine. Julia Childs accepted this remarkably hard challenge of changing food. Julia started by cooking a simple omelet for one of her books on a TV show called the WBYC. The people who lived in Boston loved it and wanted her back! Julia started her new show called “The French Chef.” On her show it was the real deal! Julia worked with huge chunks of fish, different types of chickens, fresh lobster, beautiful vegetables, and at the time rare onions. Americans loved her and her cooking. Julia set up these difficult recipe’s for home cooks so they could not fail. When “The French Chef” was over, she visited now-famous chefs in the area and interviewed them. Julia Childs brought back to life the joys of cooking.

Julia Childs affected my life because my family and I are extremely into cooking with fresh ingredients. Healthy comfort food is always on the table at night to warm our bellies and make us forget about the busy day behind us. All of my dreams are based on cooking. I am saving my money for college, practicing my skills on different types of ingredients, and even writing my own cook book. Julia Childs taught me to strive for my dreams, think big, to be fearless, to laugh always, to be able to cope with things when they go wrong, to be creative, to share what you love with others, and to never just sit and let life make all the decisions for you. But most of all she taught me to love cooking!