She won France’s highest honor! A huge step for her life was in 2000. The events leading up to this historical moment started in 1961 Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle finally published their best-seller cookbook called “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Publishing the “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” gave Julia a start on her career, that would turn into forty years of being a french chef, and it started her on her road to fame. Publishing the book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” got the media’s attention, making it possible for her to go onto her first half hour segment on television, a cooking show named “The French Chef” and then that led to her being a famous movie star. With the book that she published in 1961, having a television show, and being a world known chef, she was able to popularize French cousine. All of these events of her publishing her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, having a forty year career as being a chef, popularizing French Cousine, and her being really famous, led up to her receiving France’s highest honor possible. She was given The Legion d’Honneur in Boston on November 19, 2000. Later in her life she was able to travel, and when her husband died, she struggled to keep going. But she kept doing her best, and then settled down in Santa Barbara, California. All of this happened because she helped Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle with “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.