An Impulsive Spy in the Kitchen?

It's no big secret that Julia Child worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the CIA, during WWII. But today, the government released hundreds of thousands of pages of OSS personnel files, including Julia's.

These newly released documents give us a little bit of a glimpse into how Julia saw herself. In her application to join the OSS, Julia admitted "impulsiveness" as a character flaw.

She expressed regret that she quit a job at a department store because she didn't get along with her boss. Well, the department store's loss was all of our gain, and Julia went on to serve her country in the OSS, and then to serve us all with great food.

And while the idea of Julia Child sneaking around in a trenchcoat and dark glasses spying on Nazis is pretty appealing, she wasn't exactly doing covert ops (at 6'2", nothing Julia did was covert). She did, however, have assignments in Washington, D.C. and Sri Lanka (where she met her husband, Paul), and she even worked on a project to develop shark repellent to protect explosives intended for German subs. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Do today's celebrity chefs have what it takes to be spies? The folks over at Best Week Ever think so. Are you listening CIA? (Silly me, of course they're listening. They're always listening.)