JULIA CHILD
October 20-21, 1976

Julia Child, seen here posing in her Richmond hotel room, was known for bringing various cooking utensils on her tours, as she found that the hotels and demonstration sites were often not equipped with the tools she needed. The self-made star who brought “high-end” French cuisine into the kitchen of the modern American family, Child was the first woman inducted into the Culinary Institute of America’s Hall of Fame.

The mid-1960s through mid-1980s was the height of Child’s career, where she often traveled between filming episodes of her weekly PBS show The French Chef. In Richmond, she appeared on NBC12/WWBT’s “Good Morning” show and held a cooking demonstration and book signing event at Thalhimers department store. The family-owned company’s flagship location at Broad and Sixth Street featured its own restaurant and an extensive cookwares section. And, with new fine dining restaurants opening outside the city center, Richmond in the 1970s had begun to see itself as a place with gourmet aspirations.

Julia Child with cooking utensils, 1976, Courtesy of the Richmond Times-Dispatch