Julia Child, the woman credited with singlehandedly teaching America how to cook, would have turned 100 years old on August 15 this year.
"She was a tall, exuberant woman who could make lobster bisque look as easy as toast," as The New York Times put it in her obituary back in 2004. She dazzled her audience with coq au vin at a time when American fine dining meant sprinkling French-fried onion rings over tuna casserole, but she was also rigorous in her recipe testing, which earned her the respect of chefs on both sides of the Atlantic.
And while many of the Child tributes springing up are already starting to blur together into one giant stew, this video posted by our friends over at WGBH stands out. It's a collection of her best television action clips (throwing a rolling pin to the floor, lining up a row of raw chickens on display) and some of her most beloved and goofy sayings that are now a part of pop culture ("I'm drying lettuce!" and "We're having four vegetarians for dinner! We're not going to eat them, of course...")
Best of all, it's set to a cheeky Guns 'N Roses song of particular relevance to our own youth, around the time we first discovered reruns of Child's "The French Chef" on PBS after school and thought we'd give roast pork a try.
Enjoy.
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