Bon Appetit! KAM Appliances’ New Showroom: A Celebration of Good Living

Julia Child’s voice filled living rooms, first in New England, and then across the country and around the world, for decades.  Her laughter, her exclamations of surprise, pleasure or dismay, and her complete infatuation with food changed how we looked at home cooking. She took us, as a culture and nation, out of the TV-tray frozen dinner realm and into a world where she convinced us that we could, in fact, master the art of French cooking. 

Guided by Julia’s shows, America emerged from an era of jello molds, ambrosia, salisbury steaks and tuna casseroles. Julia gave birth to an entire genre of cooking shows, cooking channels, and a celebration of the importance of preparing food to share “Bon appetit!” with those we love. With reruns of her old programs airing regularly on public broadcasting, documentaries, feature films and the new popular HBO Max series, Julia continues to influence us. “I owe a debt of gratitude to WGBH, and to Julia,” says Kevin Gralton, with a broad grin. Gralton and his brother John and sister Kassie have owned KAM Appliances since 1985. “Her show got America cooking. She made it exciting. In the fifties and sixties we weren’t cooking really, the way we do today, the way we should have been.” Laughing at his own pun, Gralton points out Julia “got the country’s juices flowing” and boosted the appliance industry to the modern day we’ve come to know.

“Although it’s interesting,” Gralton points out, “Julia did not have a fancy kitchen. Her cookware was beautiful though. It was from...