This Cooking Legend Inspired Stanley Tucci’s Love for Cooking

Cheryl Fenton
Cheryl Fenton
An editor once called her “the kitchen sink writer." Translation - Boston-based freelancer Cheryl Fenton can write about anything, including the kitchen sink (peep her interior design pieces). Her bylines run the gamut from dailies like USAToday and the Boston Globe to monthly pubs including Whole Foods, Women's Health & Fitness, and Cooking Light to book covers (there's a travel guide for Fodor's with her name on it and a fitness read she wrote with Tamilee Webb of Buns of Steel fame).
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published Oct 20, 2021
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The grand dame of the kitchen, Julia Child, once again takes a well-earned place at the head of the table for some hearty accolades, and this time they’re from a beloved actor known for Italian strolls, pasta dishes, and a swoon-worthy Negroni. 

Calling her “the queen of culinary TV,” Stanley Tucci praises Child in his recently published third title, Taste: My Life Through Food, a memoir about his love affair with food. Written with Stanley’s deliciously wry humor, the actor (who soothed us during the onset of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with his Negroni video) reveals his admiration for the late celebrity chef for igniting his culinary passion.

“Just as certain actors led me to acting, certain cooking show hosts are partly to blame for my heightened interest in the subject of food. The first is of course [Julia] Child … ,” he writes.“ … Ever since I was very young, Child has always fascinated me. My mother tuned in to The French Chef religiously, and I remember watching it with her and loving it.”

In the excerpt, which was featured in Time, Tucci noted that because of his mother’s own admiration for Child, he developed the same love along with an interest in cooking. 

This tribute is just what we ordered, as we’re starting to get hungry for HBO Max’s new show, starring two-time British Academy Television Awards winner Sarah Lancashire as the famed chef. Julia is billed as being “inspired by Julia Child’s extraordinary life and her long-running television series, The French Chef, which pioneered the now popular genre of cooking shows.”

Tucci isn’t the only one singing Child’s praises lately, as seasoned chefs Alton Brown, Daniel Boulud, and Ina Garten also credit her as their culinary inspiration.

Taste: My Life Through Food is available now anywhere books are sold. 

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