Julia in the Kitchen

This illustration was created as a birthday gift for my mom—a lifelong home cook and an even bigger Julia Child fan. I didn’t inherit my mother’s passion for cooking, but I did inherit her love for Julia. To this day, we still impersonate Julia’s bold, unfiltered personality in the kitchen together, finding joy in her humor, her fearlessness, and her unapologetic love of good food.

Julia Child wasn’t just a culinary icon—she was also a trailblazer. Before becoming a TV personality, she worked for the Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to the CIA) during World War II. Later, she revolutionized the way Americans—especially women—thought about cooking, making French cuisine accessible while breaking down gender stereotypes in the kitchen.

For this piece, I illustrated Julia based on a still from her show The French Chef—a moment I imagined her saying something hilariously cheeky like, “Now you must pick a big breast, big breast is best!” I placed her in the kitchen I grew up in—the one my mom still cooks in today—creating a mashup of past and present that honors the way both women have shaped my life through creativity, conviction, and care.