If you've ever wanted to experience France but can't afford to travel, pick up Julia Child's memoir “My Life in France”.
Famous for introducing French cuisine into American culture, Child's memoir documents her time in France where she lived with husband Paul Child after the Second World War. Written with Alex Prud'homme, her husband's great- nephew who also wrote the foreword about his experience helping create “the France book”.
“Memory is selective and we have not attempted to be encyclopedic here, but have focused on some of the large and small moments that stuck with me for over 50 years,” Child says in the introduction.
These moments make the reader want to learn French, jet off to Paris and eat, eat, eat!
Child focuses on her days in France where she lived from 1948 until 1954, where her love of French cooking started. It quickly grew into the passion that would ignite her career. The path she leads is a heartfelt adventure from beginning to end.
Child's transition into French culture was made easier by her husband, who spent time in France before they married in 1946. They met in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) while working for the Office of Strategic Services. After a short time living in Washington, where her attempts at cooking began, they were off to France where Paul was assigned to run the exhibits office of the United States Information Service at the American Embassy in Paris.
From her first days in quaint Le Havre, then to the city that sparkles, Paris, through dirty Marseille, to the end in Provence, she falls more in love with the country. Members of her new home, like Marie des Quatre Saisons, the vegetable lady in the local market and Max Bugnard, chef at the Ecole du Cordon Bleu (where she graduated in 1951) inspired her love affair with France, with their simplistic ways and “joie de vivre”.
Though she never grew up cooking at home in Pasadena, California, Child's love of food was palpable as she tried her first French dish of sole meuniere, of which Child says was the “most exciting meal of my life.”
Child met her co-authors Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle during one of many dinner parties. They started their own cooking classes for Americans in Paris and would eventually start writing “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” published in 1961. The “cook-bookery” as Child called it, led to her television show The French Chef in 1963 filmed in Boston, Massachusetts.
During her last days in her “spiritual homeland” in 1992, Child moved from Provence back to Massachusetts. She left behind a “lovely place” where she says “the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite- tourjours bon apetit!”
Child's zest for life shines on each page, once one gets past the overwhelming culinary details. “My Life in France” is definitely a life worth experiencing.
***This book was an awesome read! It made me want to go to my kitchen and experiment. And actually, yesterday morning, I was looking up The French Chef video clips on Youtube, and I definitely tried to make an omlette the way Julia does, but with no success. It was still yummie though it had too much butter and didn't flip properly. Oh well, c'est la vie!
Her writing career is one that I envy and admire. She gets to write a blog and a book about something she is passionate about and people in turn respect and love her back. I one day hope to write something worthy enough to publish and be put on screen!
