French chef Julia Child dies at 91

LOS ANGELES - Julia Child, whose chirping words of encouragement and unpretentious style brought French cuisine to American homes through her television series and books, died Friday. She was 91.

A 6-foot-2 American folk hero, "The French Chef" was known to her public as Julia. She showed a delight not only in preparing good food but in sharing it, and ended her landmark public television lessons at a set table with the wish, "Bon appetit."

Child died at her home in an assisted-living center in Montecito, about 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, said her niece, Philadelphia Cousins.

"She passed away in her sleep," Cousins said. "She was with family and friends and her kitten, Minou. She had cookbooks and many paintings by her husband Paul around the house."

Child, who died two days before her 92nd birthday, had been suffering from kidney failure, Cousins said.

"America has lost a true national treasure," Nicholas Latimer, director of publicity for Child's publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, said.

Child was a skillful - and sometimes messy - chef, beckoning everyone to have no fear and give exquisite cuisine a try.

"Dining with one's friends and beloved family is certainly one of life's primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal," she said in the introduction to her seventh book, "The Way to Cook." "In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal."

Like the rest of us, she sometimes dropped things or had trouble getting a cake out of its mold.

"She just kind of opened the doors ... to the idea that cooking could be a pleasure and it wasn't drudgery in the kitchen," said Alice Waters, executive chef and owner of Chez Panisse, the celebrated Berkeley, Calif., restaurant. "It wasn't just for fancy French chefs."