Lunch with a culinary icon

Julia Child is curious – not about the plate of Chilean sea bass on polenta before her, but about the experiences her new photographer friend had in Afghanistan.

"Did you get all the way up into those caves?" she asks the Monitor photographer Bob Harbison.

Before I can sneak in a question, Ms. Child has turned to another new acquaintance in our luncheon foursome: "And where in town do you like to eat?" she asks.

When she finally focuses her robin's-egg blues on me, it's with another question: "How is life back in Boston?"

So goes a gracious lunch with America's grande dame of gastronomy. As she approaches her 90th birthday on Aug. 15, Child remains a tough interview. But it's not because she's imperious, haughty or self-absorbed. To the contrary. Julia Child is as down-to-earth as the farmers' market she frequents every Saturday morning.

Over the course of four decades, during which she's written 12 books and starred in eight television series, Child has set the standard for cooking in the US.

So? She gives us the cue to start eating with "Dig in!" She is not too self-conscious to ask what panini sandwiches are or too refined to wonder aloud what the fuss is about over expensive salts such as Fleur de Sel. ("Salt is salt," she says.) And she is more interested in hearing others' stories than in talking about her own.

It's this warmth and accessibility that endeared Child, known to the world simply as Julia, to TV audiences from the start. On public television's award-winning series "The French Chef," which premiered in 1963, she demystified French cooking for home cooks – and she never got flustered when recipes didn't work out. Instead, she turned her blunders into lessons, tossing out that first dreadful crepe, for example, as one might well do with all first crepes.

The years since haven't spoiled her.

Not until a perfect-looking dish of crème brûlée arrives at our table, along with four forks, does she begin to talk more about herself.

"Well, I'm not running any road races," she responds, when asked about her life since moving to Santa Barbara last winter from her home of 45 years in Cambridge, Mass.

But she is wearing sneakers – just as she did when she and I last met in her former kitchen eight years ago. And they are almost as symbolic now as then. Never one to slow down too much, she is frequently seen about town, not only at the farmers' market, but also at local culinary events.

Last November, she helped open COPIA, the lavish cultural center for food, wine, and the arts in Napa Valley, Calif. "It celebrates America's emergence into civilization," she says. "We now have world-class wines and food. We no longer have to apologize for anything."

And back at her retirement home, she rarely puts her feet up. She was sending e-mail from her bedroom when I rang her bell. "Let me just turn off my computer," she says, inviting me inside.

Her bedroom appears to be the epicenter of activity. The computer on her desk is surrounded by tidy piles of papers, and shelves over her bed are packed with copies of her own cookbooks. She recently installed a kitchen, where she frequently makes her own lunch and dinner – omelets, salads, and roast chicken are typical. For breakfast, she eats in the dining room at her residence. A peek into the new space reveals a touch of her former life: a pegboard wall with outlines for cooking tools, just like those her late husband, Paul Child, designed for their kitchens in Cambridge and Grasse, France.

Child is no stranger to the West Coast. Raised in Pasadena, Calif., she has been coming to Santa Barbara since she was 3. She and Mr. Child bought a condo there in the early 1980s, and before then, they often stayed at the tony San Ysidro Ranch. Now living in a quiet gated community just outside Santa Barbara, Child is hardly the only recognizable face in town. Oprah, Oliver Stone, and Jeff Bridges are just a few of the other celebrities who live nearby.

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