Julia Child's Birthday at the Smithsonian

Julia's copper pot collection

Eileen, Prudy, and I had a little field trip yesterday to the Smithsonian's Museum of American History to celebrate Julia Child's 100th birthday. The exhibit featuring Julia's actual kitchen from her Cambridge, Mass. home, reopened on Wednesday after being closed for a year-- you can see Julia's pots and pans as she hung them from her pegboard walls, her handwritten labels on glass jars,  her food processors, her cookbooks, all her utensils, and knives. Her entire copper pot collection that she bought in Paris is on display. Episodes of her first television show, The French Chef, were running all day in the museum's theater. We sat and watched her make omelets (20 seconds!), pie crust, and roast chicken. There were book signings for a new biography about her, and several other Julia books.  This is restaurant week in DC, and lots of restaurants are having special Julia dinners, featuring her most-loved recipes. So great!

Peeking in Julia's kitchen

Julia's cookbooks

There was a "surprise" event at 1 pm, which turned out to be a band decked out in chef's jackets and toques playing music.  A huge cake was wheeled in and the crowd all sang "Happy Birthday" to Julia. We especially loved the conductor using a giant whisk.  As you can see many in the crowd were wearing chef's toques also.  So fun.

Conductor with giant whisk!

 Of course we had to have a little lunch afterwards (at Central), and some fancy desserts in honor of Julia. Yummo. Happy Birthday Julia. You inspire us.