Julia Child's Kitchen Organization Advice

Julia Child is enjoying a moment in the cultural sun with the release of Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep as Julia. Julia fever has reached such a heights that The New York Times reports her Mastering the Art of French Cooking will make its debut at the No. 1 spot on the paper's on best-seller list of Aug. 30 in the advice and how-to category. (Better late than never, right?)

Julia has always been one of my personal heroes -- My mother sent me off to college with both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and I've sworn by her ratatouille recipe ever since. In addition to being a great cook, Julia was an organized cook. Her Cambridge kitchen, which is now preserved at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C., was a mere 12' x 14' wide, which is to say it was the size of an average home cook's kitchen (filled with a not-at-all average arsenal of cookware).

Here's what I learned from studying Julia's kitchen:

• Keep the items you use most often close at hand, Julia stored oil and vinegar right next to the stove. Whereas, fancy silverware and china was stored outside of the kitchen.
• Group like with like. Don't keep all your tools in one big jumble, break them into separate containers: one for forks, one for wooden spoons, etc.
• Label things! Julia's kitchen labels were both practical and comical. She marked jars of utensils with phrases like "spoonery" and "mostly wood."
• Get back-to-basics. You only need three knives: A good chef's knife, a paring knife and a bread knife. Store them on magnetic strips like Julia to save precious drawer space.
• Think vertical. Julia and Paul built vertical storage to store baking sheets and other trays.
• Not everyone is perfect. Even Julia had a "junk" drawer in her kitchen, which contained, among other things, WWII memorabilia and a champagne stopper in its original box with a note from "Jim Beard" aka the James Beard. (I like to think that the box managed to survive because it was only a very rare occasion on which Julia would not finish a whole bottle of champagne.)

And of course, the famous peg-board -- everyone loves the peg-board (above)! Julia's husband Paul came up with this idea to store her pots and pans, and home cooks have been copying it ever since.

In fact, back in 2007, Domino magazine ran instructions for installing a cookware peg-board as a weekend project (above and below). I love the tone-on-tone look of their subdued gray and white peg-board. I'm not the only one who loved it: Grace Bonney over at Design*Sponge did too, and recreated a smaller version of the peg-board project in her apartment! Enjoy a cinematic approach to decor? Check out this Mama Mia-inspired decorating post (another Meryl flick!).
Want more kitchen organizing advice? Then don't miss our pot rack post, which features a pic from Grace's peg-board!