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My Life in France | 
 enlarge | Authors: Julia Child, Alex Prud'homme
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Rating:  121 reviews
Sales Rank: 6060
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0307277690
Dewey Decimal Number: 641
EAN: 9780307277695
ASIN: 0307277690
Publication Date: October 9, 2007
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Condition: softcover, perfect conditions, we ship immediately
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Product Description
Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef.
Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her newfound passion for cooking and teaching. Julia’s unforgettable story – struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers to whom she sent her now-famous cookbook, a wonderful, nearly fifty-year long marriage that took them across the globe – unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 116 more reviews...
 Kitchen caper January 2, 2009
Things that Julia Child loved most in life included her husband Paul and the country France. After marrying in 1946 and living in Washington, D.C. for two years, Julia and Paul Child went to Paris. Paul was to work for the government, the USIS, at the French embassy.
Before arriving in Paris there was Rouen. The couple ate at La Couronne. The waiter advised them that the Dorin family, the owners of La Couronne, had a restaurant in Paris, La Truite. Julia signed up for French classes at Berlitz, (she liked to talk and was frustrated). Paris was walkable. Le Grand Vefour was one of the more famous old Parisian restaurants. It had been in business since 1750. Service was deft and the food was spectacular. The restaurant kept a special seat for Colette.
Julia arrived at the Ecole du Cordon Bleu in October, 1949. She signed up for a year-long course. Eleven former GIs were in the class, under the auspices of the GI Bill of Rights. The professor was Chef Bugnard, a gem. He had enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. Shopping for food with him in Paris could be a life-changing experience. Introductions and the instruction were important to Julia Child since the French are sensitive to personal dynamics.
Paul called their kitchen Julia's alchemist's aerie. Julia met both Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle in 1951. They had been trying to produce a cookbook of French cooking for the U.S. market. They had been told by Dorothy Canfield Fisher that their efforts were too dry. Also, Americans ate a lot of meat and used a lot of processed food in their cooking. They were told to collaborate with an American who was crazy about French food.
Simone, Julia, and Louisette began a school called L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes. Right from the beginning they had three students. Julia Child found that in explaining French cooking chauvinism and dogmatism were deeply engrained. She had an urge to say that the word was not the thing.
In 1953 Paul and Julia moved to Marseilles for Paul's work. The first flat they had in an Art Deco building overlooked the old port. It was learned that McCarthy's investigators, Cohn and Schine, were in Paris in search of evidence of disloyalty. It was a shame and a disgrace. They sought to interview people about the contents of the embassy library.
The USIS changed to the USIA had trimmed Paul's staff of twelve to four. After a year and a half in Marseille, Paul was transferred to Bonn. The couple moved to Germany in 1954. In 1955 Paul received notice to report to Washington, D.C. immediately. He was being investigated.
In 1956 the Childs returned to the U.S. for good. MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING was published by Knopf. James Beard helped with the launch. Julia was interviewed on WGBH, a book program. Retiring from the USIA Paul and Julia planned to live in Cambridge, MA. In 1962 three experimental half hour shows were taped for WGBH. The experiment was called THE FRENCH CHEF.
Eh voila, (here it is)--this is a good book! One learns reading this memoir that Julia Child loved using a lot of exclamation points. The book contains a number of fine photographs, too, serving to enhance the lively text.
Makes me want to move to France! January 2, 2009
This book chronicles Julia's amazing life in France. I feel inspired by Julia's story. It truly shows you can find your calling at almost any time in life.
A DELICIOUS MEMOIR November 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First of all, I have to say that I'm not into cooking or cookbooks, but after reading so many wonderful reviews on Amazon, I decided that I had to read it.
From all the great reviews that I had read, my expectations were pretty high, but the book actually exceeded my expectations. Where do I start? Julia Child along with her husband's grand nephew, who happens to be a good writer, Alex Prud'Homme, effectively draw the reader into a French life fully lived by Julia and her husband, Paul. The descriptions of the land, the food, the people and the way of life are beautifully described in this loving memoir. I also saw a different side of Julia, one that is playful, humorous and really down to earth, while at the same time she was very detail oriented and totally dedicated to her craft. The book also features lovely pictures of Paris and other places where she and Paul visited or lived taken by Paul, as he was a skilled artist and a photographer. There are words and phrases sprinkled throughout in French (some are translated in English, others are not) and it helped that I know some French. The story picks up right after Julia gets married and moves to Paris for her husband's job. She instantly falls in love with France especially its cuisine inspiring her to start cooking. What a wonderful life she had! A great read whether you're into cooking or not.
 Julia Child in Love November 9, 2008
"MY LIFE IN FRANCE"
by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme
The idea for this book was born in 1969 when Julia and her husband Paul in sifting through letters and photographs of their time in France (1948-54) realized that those formative and joyous years contained the elements for a book. It took thirty-six years but with the help of her grandnephew Alex, "the French book," as she called it is a delightful reality.
The cackling laugh and self-effacing humor so familiar to those millions for whom Julia demystified French cooking jumped off the page as I devoured this book with the same enthusiasm as a civet de sanglier on a cold Parisian day.
Who could have predicted that the daughter of a staunchly Republican, Pasadena WASP businessman and a social mom who rarely ventured into kitchen would become one of the world's foremost authorities on The Art of French Cooking?
She did it by absorbing the culture-listening, watching and questioning as in this visit to her local cremerie:
" Madame was a whiz at judging the ripeness of cheese. If you asked for a camembert, she would cock an eyebrow and ask at what time you wished to serve it; would you be eating it for lunch today, or at dinner tonight, or would you be enjoying it a few days hence? Once you had answered, she'd open several boxes, press each cheese intently with her thumbs, take a big sniff, and-voila-she'd hand you just the right one. I marveled at her ability to calibrate a cheese's readiness down to the hour, and would even order cheese when I didn't need it just to watch her in action. I never knew her to be wrong."
MY LIFE IN FRANCE chronicles Julia's education as a chef in Paris, her collaboration with Simone (Simca) Beck and Louisette Bertholle on the seminal MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING and the creation of THE FRENCH CHEF cooking show that established her as a media star.
But it is also a love story as Paul's tender observation of quotidian culinary activity so poignantly reveals: "She's becoming an expert plucker, skinner and boner. It's a wonderful sight to see her pulling all the guts out of a chicken through a tiny hole in it's neck and then, from the same little orifice, loosening the skin from the flesh in order to put in an array of leopard-spots made of truffles. Or to watch her remove all the bones from a goose without tearing the skin. And you ought to see {her} skin a wild hare-you'd swear she'd just been "Comin Round the Mountain with Her Bowie Knife in Hand."
My Life in France feels like a home-cooked meal with Julia in her kitchen.
Flavor of France November 4, 2008
Love food? Enjoy Paris? Read Julia Child's lovely memoir compiled by her nephew from letters sent by Julia to her family during years of residence in France when she learned to cook and started producing the very first culinary instruction show on television back in the 1960's. All do-it-yourself and creative innovation, Julia and Paul, her spouse and food stylist, publicity agent and bottle washer, brought fine food to a vast American audience that didn't know much about international cuisine. Thank you Julia!
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