Even the kitchen sink; the Smithsonian is cooking up a savory display of one of America's culinary stars

Insight on the News, July 29, 2002 by Donna De Marco

Joe Criste and Rob Barrett have made a mess in Julia Child's kitchen. The two exhibit specialists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History have torn apart--very delicately--the 89-year-old chef's famous kitchen at her old house in Cambridge, Mass. Now they are beginning to put it back together for an exhibit in Washington.

It's Barrett's and Criste's job to re-create the 14-by-20-foot kitchen where Child became an American cooking icon for an 18-month exhibit that opens at the American History museum on Aug. 19. The opening is planned to coincide with the chef's 90th birthday on Aug. 15.

Child donated the contents of this customized kitchen, including measuring cups, pots and her six-burner Garland commercial range. Even the PegBoards that held dozens of kitchen supplies will be part of the exhibit. The PegBoards, now leaning up against the walls in the Smithsonian basement, have hand-drawn outlines of utensils, which Child provided as an aid for her many guest chefs.

Because the project is an historic restoration, Barrett and Criste can't cut, saw, break off, repaint or change any of the original pieces in the more than 40-year-old kitchen. "If anything doesn't fit, we need to reproduce it" Criste says.

The kitchen was designed and built by Child's husband, Paul, in 1961. Since the kitchen wasn't professionally done, the dismantling and rebuilding makes it a bit more challenging. "It's more work for us" Criste concedes. They will put about 1,000 hours in the project that began back in December, when they and colleagues from the Smithsonian began to dismantle the once aroma filled room and pack it up for transport to the nation's capital. The team found some unexpected artifacts, such as an old recipe, menu and knives that had fallen behind the counter.

Barrett and Criste are working with dozens of staff and curators to catalog all 1,200 pieces of the kitchen. Since the deadline for the exhibit is fast approaching, the museum hired contractors to build out the exhibit space--something that's usually done by Criste and Barrett for other exhibits they've worked on. In between trying to get the kitchen complete, the two also are working on other exhibits including one on West Point scheduled to open in mid-October and another commemorative exhibit of artifacts, images and stories surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.