The late Julia Child is credited with changing the way Americans think about food. But Judith Jones is credited with discovering Julia Child. Jones, who speaks tonight in Portland, was the young editor at Alfred A. Knopf who helped bring Child's classic cookbook "Mastering The Art of French Cooking" into millions of American kitchens.

Judith Jones' editing career is by no means limited to popular cookbooks. As a young "girl Friday" at Doubleday in Paris, she rescued "The Diary of Anne Frank" from her boss's rejection pile, and got the book published in this country. Jones (pictured above) has also worked with writers Anne Tyler and Langston Hughes, and was the long-time editor of John Updike.

But food has always been a personal and professional passion for Jones, as it was in 1959 when she decided that American readers would have an appetitite for an authentic French cookbook.

Judith Jones is currently Senior Editor and Vice President at Alfred A. Knopf, where she has worked since 1959. Her new book is titled "The Pleasures of Cooking for One." Jones delivers the Bernard Osher Lecture as a guest of the Portland Museum of Art tonight at 6 o'clock at the Holiday in by the Bay in Portland.