My Life in France
Author: Julia Child
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.
The New York Times - Alan Riding
The result is a delight. On one level, it's the story of how a "6-foot-2-inch, 36-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian" — her words — discovered the fullness of life in France. On another, it recounts the making of "Julia Child," America's grande dame of French cooking. Inevitably, the stories overlap.
The Washington Post - Nancy McKeon
And so our last communication from Julia Child can double as a tour book. Quelle joie ! Child couldn't have planned it any better had she tried. Or maybe she was trying to teach us right up to the very end.
Publishers Weekly
Famed chef Child, who died in 2004, recounts her life in France, beginning with her early days at the Cordon Bleu after WWII. Greenberg, an actress for radio and commercials, does a fine job capturing Child's joie de vivre and unmatched skill as a culinary animateur. We hear Child's delight and excitement when she discovers her calling as a writer and hands-on teacher of haute cuisine; her exasperation as yet another publishing house rejects her ever-growing monster of a manuscript; and her joy at its publication and acclaimed reception after more than a decade of work. Child's opinionated exuberance translates remarkably well to audio, from her initial Brahmin-like dismissal of the new medium of television (why would Americans want to waste a perfectly good evening staring into a box, she wondered?) and frustration at her diplomat husband being investigated in the McCarthy-driven 1950s to her ecstasy about roast chicken and mulish insistence on the one correct method to make French bread at home. The seamless abridgment has no jarring gaps or abrupt transitions to mar the listener's enjoyment. Potential listeners should beware, however: this is not a book to hear on an empty stomach. Bon app tit! Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 13). (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Begun just months before her death and completed by her grandnephew, this memoir resurrects Julia's early days in France-when she didn't even know how to cook. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
"Ooh, those lovely roasted, buttery French chickens, they were so good and chickeny!" Anyone who remembers the iconic, deceased Julia Child (1912-2004)-or perhaps Dan Aykroyd's affectionate imitation of her-will recognize the singular voice. It's employed in this memoir to full advantage, and to the reader's great pleasure. As relative and writer Prud'homme recalls, at the end of her long life, Child was busily recording her years as a budding chef. In 1948, newly wed, she moved to Paris with her diplomat husband Paul, whom she had met while on wartime duty for the OSS (now there would be a story) in Asia. The first meal she cooked for him, she recalls, was "a disaster," and she arrived in France "a six-foot-two-inch, thirty-six-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian," but in every aspect of her life, she was determined to do better. With self-effacing humor, Child recalls her efforts at learning French, finding an apartment and coping with life in a different culture. No matter how embarrassing or baffling the course of her learning curve, Child's francophilia and zest for life shine through, and nowhere more than in the pages devoted to her sentimental education at the Cordon Bleu, the world-renowned culinary institute, in whose cramped basement she "learned how to glaze carrots and onions at the same time as roasting a pigeon, and how to use the concentrated vegetable juices to fortify the pigeon flavor, and vice versa," among other talents. Matching her growing skills with a formidable armada of kitchen gadgets that will make cookery-loving readers swoon, she then recounts the difficult conception and extremely difficult birth of her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking,which brought her fame. Charming, idiosyncratic and much fun-just like its author, who is very much alive in these pages. A blessing for lovers of France, food and fine writing. First printing of 150,000; first serial to the New York Times Magazine & Bon Appetit; Book-of-the-Month Book Club main selection; Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection
Table of Contents:
| Foreword | ix | |
| Introduction | 3 | |
| Part I | ||
| 1 | La Belle France | 11 |
| 2 | Le Cordon Bleu | 57 |
| 3 | Three Hearty Eaters | 104 |
| 4 | Bouillabaisse a la Marseillaise | 151 |
| Part II | ||
| 5 | French Recipes for American Cooks | 191 |
| 6 | Mastering the Art | 220 |
| 7 | Son of Mastering | 249 |
| 8 | The French Chef in France | 273 |
| 9 | From Julia Child's Kitchen | 287 |
| Epilogue: Fin | 299 | |
| Index | 305 |
1001 Foods You Must Taste Before You Die
Author: Frances Cas
From single press extra-virgin olive oils and artisanal cheeses to more exotic fare such as zebra jerky, this compilation is a cornucopia of culinary delicacies from every cuisine around the globe. Featuring luscious photographs and descriptions of must-eat foods from sweet to savory, this culinary gazetteer of the world offers expert guidance on how to really eat like a local when in Rome or how to find the most authentic Peking duck when visiting Beijing. Any foodie will delight at the fact-filled descriptions and marginalia and sidebars bursting with culinary history and trivia. Whether looking for the "must-taste treats" to seek out on your next vacation or inspiration for a romantic dinner for two, this compendium is sure to be a source of gourmet inspiration, certain to expand even an experienced epicure’s mental grocery list. The book is divided into sections based on food type (meats, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, sweets and confections, etc). Included are classics as well as delicacies little known outside their home turf. Each entry features authoritative yet opinionated descriptions as well as anecdotes about the producers or the region ensuring that this book will have wide appeal to connoisseurs and novices alike.
Table of Contents:
Preface 6
Introduction 8
Food Index 12
Fruit 20
Vegetables 126
Dairy 258
Fish 348
Meats 468
Aromatics 596
Grain 746
Bakery 788
Confections 882
Glossary 944
Contributors 945
General Index 948
Photo Credits 959
Acknowledgments 960
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