The Editor Who Fought to Publish Julia Child When No One Else Would
"It was early the week of Thanksgiving 1959 when William Koshland, an executive at the publishing house, Alfred A. Knopf, handed a thick, unwieldy stack of paper to Judith Jones. It was a cookbook, he said. Koshland, who hadn’t a clue about cookbooks, asked Judith if she’d weigh in."
“Everybody knew that I had spent that time in Paris and that I did like to cook,” Judith told me. Koshland plunked the hulking thing on her desk, “probably,” Judith said, “because they thought it would amuse me, and then I’d probably reject it.” Judith eyed the manuscript. The book was huge—750 pages long. French Recipes for American Cooks by Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck, and Julia Child, the cover read."