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Juila Child

Good afternoon gents. I was just watching an old episode of Juila and Jaques cook on PBS this morning. She had to be in her late 70's or possibly 80 when these were made. She still had a great sense of humour and she was still sharp as could be. They were doing an all vegetable show and were comparing how each cooked green beans and peas. I wish I would have watched her back when I was younger. She had such a good sense of humour.

Regards, Todd
 
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Boy do I feel dumb. I just caught a bit of the show and she sure sounded like it to me. Maybe it was her travels in Europe that brought it out in her voice. I just did a bit of searching for her history. She sure had the dry sense of humour. Sorry for the erroneous comment and no disrespect meant to our English friends. I will edit the mistake.

Regard,s Todd
 
Naw, no big deal. I just thought she was British. I didn't watch her when I was younger and didn't know anything about her. I just caught a few minutes of an old show today and thought her voice sounded a bit British. She seemed to have a really dry, sly sense of humour which I have always admired in the Brits. Just mistaken identity of sorts.

Regards, Todd
 
Julia Child helped to bring television cooking to the forefront with her personality, but lest we forget, she made some really, really delicious food as well.

Seeing her work with anyone is a treat and watching some of her early footage is really quite humorous as well. I wish they made TV chefs like her today.
 
Julia and the galloping gourmet would have a hard time getting air time today. No sense wine-ing about it. :wink:

Seems like most of the new generation of serious tv chefs went to PBS. I really wish my cable company had more pbs. I especially miss Sarah Moulton. foodtv is almost useless for learning how to cook. (Okay, so maybe I'm being a little bit of a wine-o. I miss the Two Fat Ladies, too.)

Trying to sort through the dvds of Julia's tv series is a bit difficult. There's 2 sets with 18 episodes each, and the Americn Masters, then another set that might overlap those. I just ordered from pbs and they have a 25% discount, which they mostly take back with sales tax and shipping.
 
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Julia and the galloping gourmet would have a hard time getting air time today. No sense wine-ing about it. :wink:

Only because Rachel Ray, Emeril, and the rest of the Food Network loons have ruined educational cooking television. You could learn more in one Julia Child episode than in an entire season of Emeril.
 
Only because Rachel Ray, Emeril, and the rest of the Food Network loons have ruined educational cooking television. You could learn more in one Julia Child episode than in an entire season of Emeril.
I tend to agree to a point. The Food Network has become a beast that cannot be stopped. There are some fantastic shows on the food network where fantastic food gets made and you learn about the process of cooking. However, shows like "Paula's Party", "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" and the ubiquitous "Food Network Challenge" are utterly unenjoyable to me. If I can't apply it to what I can do in my own kitchen, I usually avoid it.

One very notable exception is "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" with Guy Fieri. I would literally eat everything that has been featured on that show.
 
I tend to agree to a point. The Food Network has become a beast that cannot be stopped. There are some fantastic shows on the food network where fantastic food gets made and you learn about the process of cooking. However, shows like "Paula's Party", "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" and the ubiquitous "Food Network Challenge" are utterly unenjoyable to me. If I can't apply it to what I can do in my own kitchen, I usually avoid it.

One very notable exception is "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" with Guy Fieri. I would literally eat everything that has been featured on that show.

What is even worse is that many of the so called "chefs" on Food Network have no culinary education. How can you be taken seriously when you have no education in the field you are trying to teach in? That would be like a homemaker trying to teach quantum physics at some college (no offense to homemakers).

Some shows are decent, but most are pointless. I do enjoy Bobby Flay's shows, though...
 
The cool thing about Julia is that she really cooked on her show, and occasionally mistakes were made. IMHO you can learn a great deal more from real circumstances in a working kitchen than the magic TV oven that spits out perfectly prepared meals.
 
One of my favorite moments of Jacques and Julia went something like this:

Jacque: If you want to make it lighter, you don't need so much of the cream...
Julia: And if you want to cut back on the cream, you can always use butter instead!

:eek:

Roger
 
Only because Rachel Ray, Emeril, and the rest of the Food Network loons have ruined educational cooking television. You could learn more in one Julia Child episode than in an entire season of Emeril.

And don't forget one of my favorites, Justin Wilson. "Ima gona tell ye what Ima gona did".
 
And don't forget one of my favorites, Justin Wilson. "Ima gona tell ye what Ima gona did".

I grew up on watching Justin Wilson's cooking show. I learned a ton from him about cooking with flavors instead of to some strict recipe.

But, he is gone now, too. Except for reruns, which are becoming less and less frequent.

Tim
 
I thought it interesting to learn about Julia's past. I believe her in her husband met in France during the war (WWII) when they were both in the OSS, that later became the CIA.
I also got a kick out of Justin Wilson. Who could forget his use of wine, or his method for judging "doneness" of pasta. He'd fish out a strand of spaghetti and fling it on the wall...if it stuck, it was done. I bet his wife *loved* having him in her kitchen.
 
I tend to agree to a point. The Food Network has become a beast that cannot be stopped..

I have somewhat mixed feeling about Food Network.

On the one hand, I certainly am glad that we now have an entire network devoted to cooks and cooking.

The bad side? Some observations:

1) Ever notice how many commercials on this network are for packaged frozen food? Nothing against Bertoli frozen pasta , but - it ain't really the height of culinary achievement.

2) Does anyone ever contemplate eating any of the creations featured on Ace of Cakes? Its interesting to see the artistry involved, but wouldn't it be simpler for them to make these sculptures out of plastic and steel wire?

3) Rachel Ray has gone from being fresh and charming to shrill and annoying faster than anyone I can ever recall. She was interesting and believable on $40 a Day. The food she now cooks on Food Network is middlebrow crap, at best. I can only imagine what the pet food she is now hawking tastes like.

4) The Food Network web site has to be the most annoying, user unfriendly and downright bad of any cable network. Searching for recipes is frustrating beyond belief.

5) Iron Chef: Possibly the most pointless piece of television programming in history. Why does anyone watch this? For the recipes? For the thrill of competition?
 
I thought it interesting to learn about Julia's past. I believe her in her husband met in France during the war (WWII) when they were both in the OSS, that later became the CIA.
I also got a kick out of Justin Wilson. Who could forget his use of wine, or his method for judging "doneness" of pasta. He'd fish out a strand of spaghetti and fling it on the wall...if it stuck, it was done. I bet his wife *loved* having him in her kitchen.

I think they met in China while working for the OSS.
 
G

gone down south

The original dubbed-into-English Japanese version of Iron Chef was one of those shows that's so bad it became good. The American version is just kind of blah. It's a shame, because I love Alton Brown, and Good Eats is about the only show worth watching on the Food Network these days.
 
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