NYT20020731.0078 2002-07-31 13:47 A4346 &Cx1f; ttd-z r d BC-JULIACHILD-SFCHRON 07-31 1501 BC-JULIACHILD-SF MUST CREDIT THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Grande dame of cooking still going strong at 90: Julia Child celebrates in San Francisco BY KAROLA SAEKEL c. 2002 The San Francisco Chronicle SAN FRANCISCO -- How does it feel to turn 90 and have attained the status of an icon, a living legend? "It feels just like it felt before," Julia Child says with the throaty laugh familiar to millions who cut their culinary teeth on her "French Chef" television series. The show, along with her seminal book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (1961), revolutionized the way America cooks and eats. While making light of the difference a day -- or another decade -- makes, Child intends to enjoy her birthday thoroughly. First, there will be all the public observances, including a sold-out dinner Thursday at San Francisco's tony Fifth Floor restaurant, which -- like dinners that night at 19 other venues across the country -- will benefit the scholarship fund of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (which Child co-founded). Friday to Sunday, the action moves to Napa, with both members-only and public events at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, of which she is an honorary board member. Aug. 15, her actual birthday, will see her in Maine at an annual gathering of nieces, nephews, their offspring and friends, who for many years have rolled a joined birthday celebration for several members of the group into a jolly reunion. The schedule Child and her assistant of 14 years, former pastry chef Stephanie Hersh, have laid out is not exactly a senior-citizen routine, even though Child has always been candid about her age and realistic in assessing her own capabilities. When the Pasadena native moved back to California from her long-time home in the Boston area last year, she also made the move from a condominium she and her late husband, Paul, had purchased many years ago to a progressive retirement home. She is in the most active of the four levels available, but should the need arise, she can move on to assisted living facilities within the same complex. "Julia," explains Hersh, "made these retirement plans many years ago. She thinks it's selfish for people not to make arrangements for their old age in good time." But so far, age has been kind to the ebullient Child. In a phone interview a couple of weeks ago, she reported with glee that surgery early this month to remove a small cyst on her spinal cord had "miraculously" cleared up recent problems in walking: "Turned out there is nothing wrong with my legs at all." So she can once again go shopping, buying whatever seems best on any given day. Though she had a "nice" kitchen installed in her new home, Child said it's like a ship's galley -- a far cry from the huge, three-pantry kitchen Paul Child designed for their house in Cambridge. That may well be the best-known kitchen in America, since it became the site of the "French Chef" television programs, which started airing in 1962. "Back there, we always ate in the kitchen," Child reminisced, "I cannot do that here." That means her entertaining has been curtailed, even though she still has an active social life with the many friends the Childs made during 22 winters spent in Santa Barbara. She will have reunions of sorts with her famous kitchen in the next few weeks. One of its Peg-Board walls was dismantled and reinstalled at COPIA; the rest went to Washington, D.C., and the Behring Center of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. (all CQ) Hersh recalls the museum staff's approach to preserving the famous kitchen as awesome: They cataloged and photographed everything, from stove to windows, blinds to drawer contents. As reinstalled in Washington, the kitchen should be as we all remember it from countless TV shows, "right down to the toothpicks." Child will go to the capital for the debut of the exhibit right after the Maine birthday bash. To see her kitchen -- and by extension, herself -- enshrined in the Smithsonian, she said, "will be an odd feeling" and no doubt bring back memories. But Child is not one to get maudlin about the past, though she does want to keep it alive. She's already got her next project picked out: A memoir of her and Paul's life in the diplomatic service with his professional photographs and some of her collected recipes. It will undoubtedly retell how the seeds of her culinary career were sown: Fresh off the boat on their way to Paris and Paul Child's new posting (they had met in Sri Lanka during World War II), they stopped for lunch in Rouen. That lunch lit a spark that made Julia decide to take classes at the Cordon Bleu, which in turn led to her friendship and collaboration with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, co-authors of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," and, ultimately, to America's culinary revolution. For information on COPIA events open to the public, sign on to www.copia.org or call (707) 259-1600. How to feed a legend So what do you prepare when asked to cook a birthday dinner for America's most famous culinary personality? Some of the country's top chefs will answer that question Thursday at the 20 dinners nationwide that will celebrate Julia Child's approaching 90th birthday. The question may be most acute for three San Francisco chefs preparing the long sold-out dinner at Fifth Floor restaurant, because the honoree herself plans to be there. They are the host restaurant's executive chef, Laurent Gras; his counterpart at Masa's, Ron Siegel, and Masa pastry chef Keith Jeanminette. The three put their heads together, thumbed through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and "In Julia's Kitchen," and selected what seemed like the honoree's favorites, though with a few twists of their own. "It seems she loves soups," said Siegel, "so I am picking up on her vichyssoise. But since it's the middle of summer, I am adding fresh corn to it" -- plus a dollop of caviar for good measure. In the same vein, Gras is tweaking her salade nicoise, and Jeanminette is adapting her mousse au chocolat to become a spectacular six-layer pecan marjolaine. He could hardly go wrong. When Child was asked some years back what she would order for her last meal, she ended the list with "something chocolate for dessert." Here is the San Francisco chefs' menu: Corn vichyssoise with caviar Julia's composed near-nicoise salad Atlantic halibut with flavored butters Sonoma duck breast a la Julia Child with crispy pancetta and sweet summer onions and naturally enriched duck sauce Six-layer pecan marjolaine with Julia's coffee chocolate mousse, cocoa meringue, pecan crust and citrus sorbet list> Words of wisdom Julia Child doesn't have much use for fads and trends -- never has. She never subscribed to cuisine minceur, cholesterol-free cooking, meat-free meal plans, organic food or any of the other politically correct trends of different times -- and that includes restricted diets, in spades. However, an active woman all her life, she is aware of the need to keep ones weight and fitness in mind. Here are her personal rules for achieving these goals: Take small helpings No seconds No snacking Eat a little bit of everything Drink modest amounts of good wine. Why we love Julia BY KIM SEVERSON c. 2002 The San Francisco Chronicle It's easy to imagine what Bay Area chefs like Alice Waters or Michael Mina might have to say about Julia Child on her 90th birthday. But what about Bay Area notables who like to cook but are not connected to a professional kitchen? Susie Tompkins Buell, socialite and political activist who co-founded the Esprit de Corps fashion company: "When I think of Julia Child I think of the television episode where she's showing you how to make a turkey dinner and the turkey fell on the floor. It's live and she leans over and picks it up and says, `What the guests don't see won't hurt them.' You have to be playful and confident about cooking. She cooks that way, and I cook that way." Denise Hale, social icon and Liza Minnelli's stepmother: "Julia Child gave to all women one beautiful present: Watching her series you found out you don't have to be perfect." Francis Ford Coppola, film director: "I think she's a fascinating woman, and I enjoy very much watching her shows with Jacques Pepin." Harry Denton, San Francisco nightclub owner: "My favorite thing about her is her straightforward honesty and that her favorite food is butter. I love butter, too." Michael Chabon, author of Pulitzer Prize winner "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay": "All I think of when I think of her now is Dan Akroyd pretending to be her (on Saturday Night Live) and chopping his fingers off and bleeding all over." NYT-07-31-02 1347EDT