How ‘The Julia Child Challenge’ Recreated the Food Icon and Her Kitchen

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer“Top Chef,” “Chopped” and “Cutthroat Kitchen” alum chef Antonia Lofaso is the head judge of Food Network and Discovery Plus’ upcoming primetime cooking competition “The Julia Child Challenge.” It’s important to make that title clear up front as, though Lofaso is the vibrant live chef in the room with the contestants, the vibrant Julia Child herself serves as host via a giant screen playing classic black-and-white footage of the food icon hosting “The French Chef” in the center of a kitchen modeled to look just like her own.And if the show didn’t have that literal larger-than-life component at its core, president of Food Network and streaming food content at Discovery Courtney White tells Variety she wouldn’t have picked up “The Julia Child Challenge.” “We had been pitched Julia-centric ideas over the years,” White said. “They always felt like they were very technical focused.

And we’re really always focused on primetime and always informational. We always strive for takeaway for the viewer in every episode.

But we also need to be big entertainment. So we also need to like hold the ratings bar up to a show like ‘Tournament of Champions.’ And so when we got this particular pitch from 3 Arts Entertainment, it was all about bringing Julia to life.

That it felt like Julia herself was in the show, that she was a guiding force. And yes, it was through a creative use of footage — but that was just the differentiator, that it felt like it was not going to just be an archival show about Julia, it wasn’t going to just be a show about people talking about and reminiscing about Julia.”Working in conjunction with The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, “The Julia Child.