The Recipe at La Jolla Playhouse
The Magic of Julia Child
By: Sharon Eubanks - Feb 23, 2026
Julia Child was one of America’s most beloved chefs. Her cooking show, The French Chef, which aired originally on PBS can still be found on the internet. Who was Juia Child? How did she come to be this exalted personality?
The La Jolla Playhouse presentation of The Recipe, written by Claudia Shear and directed by Lisa Peterson provides its answer to this question. Based on the book Dearie by Bob Spitz, the production starts with Child as a student at Smith College. Born Julia McWilliams in Pasadena in 1912, Julia’s parents had deep East Coast roots. Her father John McWilliams Jr was a Princeton graduate; her mother, Julia Carolyn Weston, was a paper-company heiress (the company is now part of Crane Paper) and daughter of a lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. Small wonder that Julia was sent to Smith for her college education. With no financial worries, Julia, somewhat oblivious to the less prosperous students at Smith, partied the time away.
Outgoing, blunt, always speaking her mind, and good at sports, Julia wasn’t about to let men win tennis games just because they were men. She was tall, but did not cower or slouch. Julia was convinced she had a purpose in life other than domestic life but just didn’t know what it was. After college, worked for a NYC furniture company but eventually returned to Pasadena, where she resisted pressure from her father to marry and become a housewife. She was still convinced that she was meant to do bigger things.
Then came WWII and the opportunity to work for the government for the simple reason that the men were fighting on the ground and women could get office positions normally closed to them during peacetime. Too tall for enlistment in the military, Julia secured a position as a typist in Washington DC at the Office of Special Services (OSS). Showing herself competent and ambitious, and with a little help of family connections, the job led to a position handling government spies in Ceylon. In Ceylon, Julia meets Paul Child, a serious foodie, who she eventually marries. Against her fathers’ wishes, Paul takes a job with the US Foreign service and the couple moves to Paris. One day Julia has a simple meal of fish on a dish, causing an epiphany that changes her life. That dish, stirring up memories of her childhood in California, gives Julia her reason for being. She is going to cook food and show the world how to do it.
Growing up ultra-wealthy with in-house cooks and going out to eat at fine restaurants and country clubs, Julia doesn’t know how to cook. She enrolls at Cordon Bleu, finding herself in a cooking class meant for elegant hostesses instead of serious career-oriented chefs, Julia must contend with gatekeepers and status-conscious French chefs. Eventually she meets two French chefs (Simone Beck [Simca in the play] and Louisette Bertholle) who are looking for an American to help write a cookbook. Through them Julia learns how to navigate the Cordon Bleu bureaucracy and more importantly, how to really cook French food. The collaboration falls apart as Julia insists on adapting the recipes to appeal to American sensibilities, a notion that the French cooks find appalling. Julia and her husband return to the US in Boston and Julia publishes her cookbook, which is an instant hit. The success of the book leads to her cooking show, The French Chef, which ran for 10 years
The Recipe features a fine ensemble cast who portray key figures in her journey to find her purpose; Michael Park as her father, Norbert Leo Butz as Paul Child, Rami Margron as Simca, and Saisha Talwart as Louise.
Pre WWII, people in the US had little exposure to the rest of the world. Her father, clearly a member of the US elite, considered anything non-US suspicious, especially if it was French. It is hardly surprising that the rest of America thought the same way. Julia Child was an outgoing people person, with relentless energy and attention to detail. She had seen the world, understood that world through food ,and introduced a post-WWII America to that world by focusing on the joy of cooking and eating fine French food. Which is indeed the recipe to her success.
Now thru March 29, 2026. Tickets here.