In Julia’s Kitchen: Practical and Convivial Kitchen Design Inspired by Julia Child

Architect Heyne (Mirror by Design) revisits the time she interviewed Julia Child about the design of her kitchen for Washingtonian magazine, and expands on Child’s insight into kitchen design. The strongest segment of the book recounts the 1989 meeting in words and photos. Child welcomed Heyne and photographer Scherer (who worked with Child on a cookbook) into her Cambridge, Mass., home, and gave them a personal tour of her kitchen. After that, Heyne includes a hodgepodge of interviews with friends and acquaintances of the TV chef, digressions on Child’s other kitchens (public and private), and photos from various dinner parties. The book completely goes off the rails as Heyne assesses the French approach to food through the lens of a family friend and offers asides on various kitchen designs she has completed, in addition to a digression on Frank Lloyd Wright and Fallingwater; none of these subjects is covered in depth or tied to Child all that well, and as a result they seem out of place. This meandering book quickly falls out of the scope of its original subject. Photos. (Oct.)