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First Published:
Apr 2006, 336 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2007, 368 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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The story of Child's growth from a naive newleywed into a great cook and one of the best and most influential teachers of the twentieth century.
In her own words, here is the captivating story of Julia Child's
years in France, where she fell in love with French food and
found 'her true calling.'
From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre in the fall of 1948
and Julia watched the well-muscled stevedores unloading the
cargo to the first perfectly soigné meal that she and her
husband, Paul, savored in Rouen en route to Paris, where he was
to work for the USIS, Julia had an awakening that changed her
life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California,
who didn't speak a word of French and knew nothing about the
country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in
the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu.
After managing to get her degree despite the machinations of the
disagreeable directrice of the school, Julia started
teaching cooking classes herself, then teamed up with two fellow
gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help
them with a book they were trying to write on French cooking for
Americans. Throwing herself heart and soul into making it a
unique and thorough teaching book, only to suffer several rounds
of painful rejection, is part of the behind-the-scenes drama
that Julia reveals with her inimitable gusto and disarming
honesty.
Filled with the beautiful black-and-white photographs that Paul
loved to take when he was not battling bureaucrats, as well as
family snapshots, this memoir is laced with wonderful stories
about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Above
all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer
love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow
Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became.
Le voici. Et bon appétit!
Foreword
In August 2004, Julia Child and I sat in her small, lush garden
in Montecito, California, talking about her life. She was thin
and a bit stooped, but more vigorous than she'd been in weeks.
We were in the midst of writing this book together. When I asked
her what she remembered about Paris in the 1950s, she recalled
that she had learned to cook everything from snails to wild boar
at the Cordon Bleu; that marketing in France had taught her the
value of "les human relations"; she lamented that in her
day the American housewife had to juggle cooking the soup and
boiling the diapers—adding, "if she mixed the two together,
imagine what a lovely combination that would make!"
The idea for My Life in France had been gestating since
1969, when her husband, Paul, sifted through hundreds of letters
that he and Julia had written his twin brother, Charles Child
(my grandfather), from France in 1948–1954. Paul suggested
...
Reading the memoir of this feisty "rather loud and unserious" six-foot-two Californian is a huge pleasure, and the photographs of France and the French, mostly taken by her husband, are exceptional. It's so easy to assume that success comes to famous people easily, but this impression is quickly corrected when reading of the extraordinary efforts she went through for nine years, before Mastering the Art of French Cooking was eventually published in 1961, when she was about 49 years old...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Smith College and worked for the OSS during World War II in Ceylon and China, where she met Paul Child. After they married they lived in Paris, where she studied at the Cordon Bleu and taught cooking with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she wrote the first...
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