Book Review
My Life in France By JULIA CHILD
Reviewed by PEGGY BARNETT
In the interest of full disclosure, this reviewer is an enthusiastic fan of Julia Child. I watched her television program from its early days and own four of her cookbooks. However, I had not read any biographical stories until now.

My Life in France is written "with Alex Prud'homme," the greatnephew of Julia Child's husband. He states in the Foreword that he had wanted to collaborate with her on a writing project, but she resisted until she was 91. They worked together for a year, and Julia died in 2004. Their book was published in 2006.

Not exactly an autobiography, My Life in France does give details of Julia Child's life before her marriage, but the focus is on just what the title says. Paul Child had lived in France before, and he welcomed an assignment with the U.S. Information Service that sent him there in 1948, when he and Julia had been married for two years.

Try not to be too hungry when you read this book. It does not contain recipes, but the loves of Julia's life, besides her husband, were France and food. It is fun to read about her struggles to learn to cook and her great joy in eating the wonderful French cuisine and becoming a master cook herself. She describes many dishes and many meals with devotion to details and flavors.

"Suddenly the dining room filled with wonderfully intermixing aromas that I sort of recognized, but couldn't name. ('What's a shallot?' I asked, sheepishly.") Their first lunch together in France had been "absolute perfection."

She soon visited L'Ecole du Cordon Bleu and signed up for a six-week course that turned out to be yearlong. She was not always pleased with the administration of the famous school, but admired and learned from Chef Max Bugnard, who became a lifelong friend. Her class was composed of herself and 11 former GIs studying under the GI Bill of Rights. "Luckily, I had spent most of the war in male-dominated environments and wasn't fazed by them in the least."

The reader can "hear" the Julia Child of "The French Chef" fame in many expressions: "I went right home and made the most delicious example of that dish I'd ever eaten, even if I do say so myself." The television success was to come much later. First there were all those years of eating and cooking in France and the collaboration with two friends on the long ordeal of composing what became Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

My Life in France is a delightful book, enhanced by Paul Child's photographs, and capturing the development of a tall American novice cook into the celebrated "French Chef." As she would say, "bon appetite!"

Reader Comments

No comments have been posted. Be the first!

Other Stories With Comments:
Article	Comments
The Office Cat	2
Neighborhood vandalism is out of control	1
The Office Cat	1
Drug problem growing; little is being done	1
The Office Cat	1
Family escapes death in semi hit-and-run	1
Feed a family of four for $10 a week	1