The Julia Child Challenge

As a lifelong Julia Child fan, I started watching this with a little trepidation. I thought it would be too easy to turn Julia into a caricature and I was concerned about how they would incorporate her into the show. It turns out that my concern was unfounded. They did a great job.

I loved this show and I'm not over-fond of many current cooking contests on Food Network. My complaint against most shows is that they prefer flash-bang, edgy contestants and weird banter that ends up detracting from the cooking.

The Julia Child Challenge seems to take a page from The Great British Baking Show play-book; kinder, gentler, but no less entertaining and certainly more educational than most of the current crop.

I love that the contestants are nice folks, that they genuinely support each other, and don't talk smack. Each of them is truly talented as a home cook, too.

Antonia Lofaso does a great job connecting with the contestants and providing honest constructive criticism.

I'd happily watch more seasons of this.

What a refreshing change from the nasty, vulgar competition shows that seem to breed like, well, rats in a kitchen. This one is about the food and Julia Child's amazing legacy of making great cooking accessible to all. The contestants and the judges are respectful to each other and clearly find joy in what they do, as Julia did. The interspersed videos of Julia are so inspiring.

I like this show. It's not flashy or celebrating a holiday or season as some other FN show do, but it's more classy. It's neat to see the B&W Julia Child videos. The best part is at the end when the judges and contestants all sit around a big cozy table and try all the dishes the contestants made during the competition. What a great learning experience for all the competitors. They get to taste what others have done and discuss techniques, ingredients, etc. With each other and the judges.

The contestants are genuinely talented knowledgeable cooks. The program is not manipulative with regards to editing - a reason I usually avoid watching these programs. The competition between the contestants is respectful. The guest judges are all very experienced, constructive in their feedback, most with areal to Julia. The program honours her legacy . The producers reveal layers of Julia's life, her wide ranging skills and life experience prior to becoming the charming and influential home chef she became. Julia was confident enough to include her bloopers and mistakes. I'm looking forward to future series, We only have series one in Australia.

Antonia Lofaso and guest judges assign various cooking challenges to a group. The twist is that the challenges all come from Julia Child's famous cook book. There are also many clips of Child from various TV shows.

Main problem is that the format is dull and the competitors are not very interesting. More low key than other Food Network cooking competitions.

Lofaso tries but she can't force much life into this dead fish of a show. The most interesting part is the barrage of Child clips.