FReeper Canteen ~ Hall of Heroes: Julia Child ~ January 12, 2015

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[Kathy in Alaska]

 

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~ Hall of Heroes ~

Julia Child

Info from this website and this website.

           

Julia Child: 1912-2004

Julia McWilliams Child was born Aug. 19, 1912, and was, she has said, "an adolescent until I was 30." One of her grandfathers left Illinois in 1849 when he was 16 to pan for gold in California. Her mother, tall and lively like Julia, had roots in New England. Julia grew up in Pasadena in a large house with drivers, gardeners, cooks and a kitchen that both she and her mother rarely saw or cared about. She played center for her private-school basketball team and enrolled in Smith College where she lived what she describes as a "butterfly life," driving her friends around in a Ford and graduating in 1934.

To many, Julia Child is the darling grandmother who taught Americans how to appreciate great cooking. Few know, however, that this part of her life came after a high-level stint in the OSS (a CIA precursor) during WWII. Julia Child became interested in military service when she joined the Red Cross after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. Before then, Julia was becoming the Paris Hilton of her day -- she would stay out late drinking and socializing and, being from a privileged background, could afford to do so. Joining the Red Cross helped her focus her life on constructive goals. The new lifestyle appealed to her and the Red Cross became her first step toward serving her country.

Julia was eager to do more, but at 6' 2" she was too tall for other military service organizations. Refusing to give up, she a traveled to Washington in 1942 to explore her options. Soon she began working for the Office of Strategic Services. Although she has modestly claimed her duties were only clerical, her performance record suggests otherwise. By 1943 she had been promoted and was working with very sensitive intelligence material. That same year, she was recruited to travel overseas and help manage intelligence activity in WWII’s Pacific theater. Stationed in Kandy, Sri Lanka, she helped the OSS track data on a range of topics including troop movement and espionage. Julia helped coordinate the information necessary to plan the attacks on the Japanese-held islands in the area.

To some degree, Julia was to the service what “Q” was to James Bond -- although her duties didn’t involve undercover work, she helped develop supplies and techniques for spies and clandestine operatives. One of Julia’s first OSS teams was assigned the task of finding ways a spy stranded on a life raft could get water. One particularly unappealing strategy they experimented with was drinking water squeezed from a fish’s body. Unfortunately, the technique turned out to be useless.

Julia’s other surprising contribution to the OSS was a shark repellant. The United States had underwater mines that were being inadvertently detonated by sharks. The shark-induced explosions had two main downsides: There was one less mine and German U-Boats could chart the minefield’s location and know where to avoid. The OSS needed a way to keep sharks away from the explosives, so they turned to Julia. She and some coworkers cooked up a shark repellant that was used to coat the explosives. Unlike her fish squeezing technique, Julia's shark repellant seemed to be successful.

After her service in the OSS, Julia married Paul Child, an OSS operative she had worked with while in Sri Lanka. The two moved to Paris in 1948 where Paul Child worked for the U.S. Intelligence Service. Soon, she began attending the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris and developed skill in preparing French cuisine. Julia's cooking interests and abilities grew steadily, and in 1961 she published her first cookbook: 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking.' It was this book and her subsequent television appearances that made Julia Child a household name, but the events were set in motion by her employment in a clandestine intelligence agency.
 

Please remember the Canteen is here to honor, support and entertain our troops and their families.  This is a politics-free zone!  Thanks for helping us in our mission! 

[Kathy in Alaska]

I don’t know....she tried to enlist in the WACs and then in the WAVES. Neither would allow her because she was too tall. She kept trying, even after she was rejected.

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good morning, Ms Feather....she was quite the character.

Hope you are staying warm. *hugs*

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good morning, Sand...((HUGS))...did you get any cooking tips from her?

I’m off to work....later.

[SandRat]

Good morning, Kathy...((HUGS))...never could keep up with her but enjoyed watching her show.

[SandRat]

[beachn4fun]

Happy (or not) Monday SR ((HUGS))

[SandRat]

I just thought that was good laugh...((HUGS))...beachie

[MHT]

Her recipes are the best. Once again a testimonial to being professionally expert and personally flawed.

[Intolerant in NJ]

I think she probably was a strong patriot, but movies and those who make them being what they are, they try to put as negative a spin on such sentiments as possible - as I remember it, they did show a bit about how she came from a staunch conservative Republican family with the obligatory snarky comments about such roots, and her husband was portrayed as being beset and hounded by those evil people in whatever government agency he was working for who were trying to expose possible communist influence in its operations - as shown it seemed her patriotism was downplayed and had been muted perhaps because of dissatisfaction with her family and sympathy for the travails of her husband - but politics aside “Julie ad Julia” was good picture especially in showing how she developed her cooking interests and career, and some of the unintentionally funny situations she got herself into on the way.....

[betty boop]

Thank you so very much, ConorMacNessa, for posting Capt. Lefon's Chronicle Of "The Empty Chair." It brings tears of gratitude to my eyes....

[beachn4fun]

Good morning Pro ((HUGS))

Yes, I know I am on yesterday’s thread. I don’t have time to post on today’s thread but wanted to say hello to you without having to answer pings. I’m trying to get a short report updated and sent of to the govyboss, which was supposed to have been done yesterday.

We have sunshine this morning, and will get a brief warm up (however, anything above 20 is a warm up these days) this weekend.

Hope you have a warmlicious day.

[hosepipe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhwW4IKqimA

[betty boop]

Thank you ever so much for the link to Schumann's (b. 1810 – d. 1856 — he died young) magnificent Kinderszenen, composed for orchestra.

It is heartening to know that such a "troubled" human being never cut himself off from his Main Source. And that so much beauty resulted from his life's work....

[hosepipe]

Amazing a human can be so good at a few things and so tragically bad at other things..

Which sets the base for Second reality.. and Third and maybe even Fourth..

Examples: Saul Alinsky; Joe Stalin; Mao; Hitler; Obama; Karl Marx; Napoleon; Genghis Khan; Stephan Hawking; Dawkins Etc..

Music (it seems) cuts through all the “realities”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRBMdS4t36c

[ConorMacNessa]

You are most welcome, Betty! I'm glad you liked it!


"Dia shábháil ar fad anseo!"

Genuflectimus non ad principem sed ad Principem Pacis!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[Alamo-Girl]

Beautiful - thank you so much for pinging me!