Warming Up Julia Child

The Remarkable Figures Who Shaped a Legend

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

A Pulitzer prize-finalist peels back the curtain on an unexplored part of Julia Child's life—the formidable team of six she collaborated with to shape her legendary career.

Julia Child's monumental Mastering the Art of French Cooking and iconic television show The French Chef required a team of innovators to bring out her unique presence and personality. Warming Up Julia Child is behind-the-scenes look at this supporting team, revealing how the savvy of these helpers, collaborators, and supporters contributed to Julia's overwhelming success.

Julia is the central subject, but Helen Horowitz has her share the stage with those who aided her work. She reveals that the most important element in Julia Child’s ultimate success was her unusual capacity for forming fruitful alliances, whether it was Paul Child, Simone Beck, Avis DeVoto, Judith Jones and William Koshland (at Knopf), and Ruth Lockwood (at WGBH). Without the contribution of these six collaborators Julia could never have accomplished what she did.

Filled with vivid correspondance, fascinating characters, and the iconic joie de vivre that makes us come back to Julia again and again, Warming Up Julia Child is essential reading for anyone who adores Julia and her legacy.

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Sydenham Clark Parsons Professor of American History and American Studies, emerita, Smith College, is a historian whose work has focused on the cultural history of the U.S. and on culturally important biographical subjects. Honors include the 2003 citation for her book Rereading Sex (Knopf, 2002) as one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in History and the Merle Curti Award given by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American social or intellectual history. In 2011 she (in conjunction with Patricia Hills) won the W.E. Fischelis Book Award of the Victorian Society of America for John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Praise of Women. Helen is also a well-known emerita professor at Smith College. The college’s large alumnae are unusually loyal to their alma mater, as was Julia Child during her lifetime.  

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Endorsements & Reviews

"Horowitz’s (A Taste for Provence, 2016) liberal use of Julia’s notebooks and diaries adds telling detail to this biography. The chef's many fans will deeply appreciate Horowitz’s intimate insights into how Julia developed a network of talented, nurturing colleagues who helped transform her into a highly revered cultural icon." Booklist, starred review