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A DELICIOUS MEMOIR

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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

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"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 crémerie: " 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-voilá-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

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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!

Charming and Impressionistic	Customer Rating:
If not quite an intimate self-portrait, this book was a slight, charming, and impressionistic memoir of halcyon France. Julia Child's unforgettable voice rang like a bell on every page. And I did learn how to make perfect (and I mean it) scrambled eggs.

Interesting, but Disappointing

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Gee-- I can't believe I'm one of only a handful of reviewers that didn't love this book! I was just a kid during the 1970's, and I have such fond memories of watching Julia "The Cook Lady" Child with my mom and sister. I wanted to learn what she was really like as a person and BOY was I disappointed. What I learned about Julia: she was a priviliged, elitist food snob who held such disdain for who and where she came from that she became "French-i-fried" almost overnight! I enjoyed the descriptions of French life and food, but I didn't appreciate the condescension. I still respect her for popularizing French cuisine in America, but after reading this book I feel like she was aspiring to be something she was not. My imagined Julia was down-to-Earth and grandmotherly. Needless to say, I didn't get that. If you are interested in vividly detailed descriptions of French food and wine, then you will probably enjoy this book. If you are looking for personal insight, maybe not as much...