Julia Child was definitely a get-up-and-go person with an up-beat personality. I envy anyone who can pick up a new language so readily. Her descriptions of France - the culture, the places, the people - were fun to read. I skimmed over most of the descriptions of restaurant dinners and many of the food preparation details (except for the paragraphs about pressed duck). The tone of the story is casual, which makes for a smooth and entertaining read. She even included expressive slang such as phooey! It's been a while since I've heard anyone use that expletive.

My grandfather was a French chef who, back in the 1920s, worked at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. I did not inherit his passion for cooking, nor do I care for the rich French foods, but I do enjoy a hearty potage and the French breads. I find the formalities overwhelming. Once I was served a banana, complete with skin, on a plate. I didn't know what to do with it, so I watched the others. They used their knives and forks to skin the banana and then eat it. Fingers were never involved. That was an experience! They told me to go ahead and eat it however I wanted to, but I persevered, thus providing dinner table entertainment.* I wish I could remember what my grandfather had to say about Julia Child because I know he mentioned her, but I don't remember what he said.

The photos are well-chosen; I only wish there had been more of them.

This is probably a 3.5 on my rating scale, but since I learned so much, I'm giving it 4 stars.

*I should elaborate on my story. Apparently the hosts thought they were serving the bananas the way Americans eat them, so they laughed at the misunderstanding. They wanted to know how we did eat them. So I showed how we peeled it and took bites while holding the partially peeled fruit. That, too, turned out to be humorous -- Americans eat bananas like monkeys do!

It was ok and like I read it somewhat quick but it kind of made me dislike Julia Childs. Like before I read the book I thought very highly of her but the book made her seem kind of pretentious and out of touch with the American public (who she claimed to like and work for so much). Also like she lived such an amazing life but would complain about it so much unless she was in Paris like what if I lived her life Id be so grateful wtf

"Let's eat!"

Okay...I didn't grow up knowing much about Julia Child. To be honest, it was Dan Aykroyd's SNL impersonation of Mrs. Child that first drew my attention. I don't consider it insulting, but a tribute to someone who was obviously a media icon of the 20th Century. That in itself is amazing, as Julia Child would never have been considered the emblem of stardom. She wasn't thin or beautiful or full of herself, but she blossomed into a star of public-funded television.

We had expensive hairdos, put on our nicest dresses, chicest hats, and best makeup. Then we looked at each other. "Pretty good," we declared, "but not great." We had tried, and this was the very best we'd ever look.

That's why I love this book and that's why, after reading it, I grew to love Julia Child. She never tried to be something she wasn't. She didn't believe she was the greatest cook who ever lived. She simply enjoyed bringing her love of French food to the Americans, at a time when most people living in the United States were well into frozen tv dinners and the ever-growing fast food world. It was her obsession with practice, practice, practice that made her experiments with food so fascinating.

By the end of my research, I believe, I had written more on the subject of mayonnaise than anyone in history.

I was simply enthralled with this book, so much so, I tried not to finish it, which is what happens when I love a book. Her memories of post-war Europe are tantalizing, yet it was just a fantastic journey for her. While others would have become upset at the way life unfolded, she saw everything (and I do mean everything) as sheer adventure. As fun! Even when failure hit. Ouf!

So now I am YouTube-ing Julia Child. And I have chosen to focus on "pulling a Child" with peach ice cream. Not able to find any at the local store, I will make it myself with the same obsession to detail that Julia Child brought to her food and her life. Hooray!

Book Season = Spring (save the liver)

Maybe a little too foody for a food memoir, which is a ridiculous thing to say about a food memoir for one and about one written by Julia Child for two. But I could almost taste some of the food which is how you know it's good.

I really enjoyed this book. A feel good story that made me want to cook, eat, travel, and eat some more! Highly recommended for fans of Child's, foodies or Paris or just want to enjoy a feel good book about finding ones passion in life.

What a beauty! It's been a week since I finished reading this and it's still stuck in my mind. I had never thought a biography of Julia Child would be of much interest to me. I only picked this up out of curiosity after watching Julie and Julia. I hated Julie but was intrigued by Meryl Streep in the role of Julia. But even so, I didn't have high hopes from the book.

My Life in France proved to be a beautiful piece of work. It is written by Alex Prud'homme, Julia's great-nephew, who spent days trying to get to the essence of Julia's love of French food. He used old letters and his discussions with his great-aunt to write this book. What is wonderful about it is the way it evokes feels of post-war France in a way I have never seen anywhere else. It's like watching a wonderful Jacques Tati film, only without the satire. I enjoyed the utter fascination of Julia and her husband, Paul, with France and French food. But Prud'homme deserves his own accolades for the writing.

I really enjoyed reading about the relationship between Julia and Paul. They had genuine love and respect for each other. Here is one man you can say is the man behind the woman. Paul encouraged her in every venture and was content to play the second fiddle. Most of the women Julia talks about appeared to be working in the 50s, which I found quite intriguing. It was also interesting to read about Julia's relationship with her extreme right-wing father right in the midst of the McCarthy regime. Julia herself was left-leaning and appeared to be quite rational about her country's foreign policy.

Paul was a diplomat who was posted in France. This is how Julia got introduced to the country. It was instant love for her. After five years in France, they also lived in Germany, Norway, and the US. None of these places are described in quite the same way as France, so they were not as interesting to read about. The book does become less interesting in the second half once the couple leave France but by then I was so hooked with Julia's life and career that my interest remained strong. The author's descriptions of the various friends, acquaintances, and relatives of the couple gave a depth to the story and were sometimes quite funny.

And finally, the food! Julia was obviously passionate about food in all forms, but she was crazy about French gourmet food. I must admit the French have a great food culture, especially the way they take their time to actually eat. Even though I am a vegetarian, I actually began to appreciate Child's dedication to finding the freshest and best ingredients for her dishes. Her commitment to learning new dishes and experimenting on new ways to cook was inspiring. Sadly, I could not use most of her recipes because they were not vegetarian, but I found a couple of aubergine recipes that I totally intend to try out.

Julia Child was a remarkable woman, and Alex Prud'homme is a remarkable writer. This book is eminently readable and enjoyable.

I did not grow up on Julia Child. I’m too young to have watched her TV show, and my mom wasn’t the type to own any of her cookbooks (we stuck to mostly Italian recipes handed down from my dad’s mom and ranch-style cooking- or, if we were unlucky, my British nanny’s “traditional” English dishes she insisted we try). I barely knew who she was before I started cooking a few years ago. I admit that I wasn’t really interested in her until the recent movie Julie and Julia, which definitely made me want to know more. What can I say? Meryl Streep’s powers are infinite.

I say this just so you’re aware that I don’t have any childhood memories that mean that this book is illuminated in a shiny, impenetrable blanket of nostalgia (not that there is anything wrong with those blankets. I have them for other things! Just not for this). Nonetheless, I really liked this book. I don’t want to overstate this. The book is what it says it is, and you should sign up for it because you would like to read about what Julia Child did in France, what came of her trip in France, the writing of French cookbooks, and how she got started as The French Chef. There is food, and a lot of it. Everything from incredibly detailed memories of menus she ate or cooked for people in France in 1950, to explanations of her experiments with translating French foods to the American market to the trials and tribulations of publishing her cookbook. So far, so expected. And, frankly, so good. She is excellent at describing a sense memory of taste so that even if you’re not quite sure what a dish is, you’re very sure that you want to eat it.

The unexpected part, which I loved, was Julia’s personal transformation. I don’t necessarily mean the inspirational tale of finding happiness in going native in a foreign country that inspired a thousand imitators of the Under the Tuscan Sun variety. I meant the other side of the story, her prickly growth as a person. The way these stories are told (and it should be noted that they are written by her great-nephew, though with her approval), her very distinctive voice seems to express not only the sort of warmth and charm that drew people to her, but also the other woman hiding behind that. I really identified with that other woman that she seemed embarrassed to talk about too much. She was the girl who was smart and restless enough to long for more than the slot that life had lined up for her (housewife in unthinking Republican Pasadena), but, so it seemed, with a self-esteem low enough that she didn’t think herself as smart as the artsy, literate people that she longed to be around (like her husband). I could relate to that- I've been that girl. Forever in-between in your own mind, not good enough for what you want, but knowing you need more than what would be acceptable. It was fascinating to hear her talk about politics of the time period (and this was a surprisingly political book), whether French or American- and then stop herself with one of her patented sweet exclamations (“Phooey!”, “Whew!”)- as if she was suddenly self-conscious of talking about something that she was not an expert about and didn’t want people to think she was getting above herself or something. She was extremely self-aware about her limits, too. There was a wonderful passage from when she was about 40 or so when she was arguing with a man of conservative opinions when she realized that she had “emotions instead of opinions,” which was why she couldn’t express herself very well. She didn’t come out and say it, but it seemed implied that she was still a young girl rebelling emotionally against her Republican father- which had seemed to her sufficient opinion until that point. She immediately resolved to educate herself and read, with Paul, a wide assortment of French and American newspapers. How many people are willing to admit that kind of ignorance and take on such a deep project of self-improvement at that age? In my experience, that seems to be about the time where people start to get set in their ways and are all, “Oh well, too late not to suck at life now!”

Once she had found her new passion, she also became the most amazingly hard worker. She spent months perfecting a mayonnaise recipe that no one had ever written down, and then had to find a way to translate it to an American market that has ingredients that make for a completely different chemistry. She was the first person to write down a recipe for French bread in English, and it took her over 200 pounds of flour to get it right. She wrote to scientists who worked with Hershey’s to get a demonstration of the chemical reactions of chocolate. It was the most amazing thing- like she finally found a little niche that she could make herself have enough self-confidence to succeed in, despite her doubts, and suddenly we find out that she’s probably way smarter than the people she’s been writing about in awe the entire book, whether chefs or otherwise. She eats this amazing meal when she first arrives in France that starts her on this journey towards her ultimate career as a French chef, and about halfway through the book (and twenty years later), she goes out to a restaurant and has another amazing meal- but instead of reacting in awe and worshiping the magic of the French character, she guesses, accurately, everything that is in the dish and goes home and reproduces it almost exactly, and it is just as good as the lady in her restaurant who has been making this dish since the dawn of time. The way she talks about her obsession with these details of why food works is still almost…defensive, like she had to explain it to someone a half-century later, when she's been proven right about having done it over and over again. It’s so true- once the insecure girl who is too tall, too smart, too something- always that girl, successful or not.

Ultimately, you love her because she always brings things back to this place of happiness and, “oh well, the show must go on!” no matter what- but the way she told the stories and negotiated herself to that place was very realistic. This was not an unrelenting “always look on the bright side of life,” montage. There were difficult people in her life, difficult spots in her marriage, difficult moments in her career- the fact that she still remembers verbatim quotes and fights from forty years earlier is telling- and she’s clear about it when she doesn’t like something or someone and why. She doesn’t have an American sense of everything will turn out all right in the end, but rather this very French tant pis acceptance that shit happens and life is shit and oh well, wade through it like a big girl. She doesn’t try to deny anything or erase it or obsess about appearing perfect when she wasn’t- which is something I find irritating about American self-help books and TV fantasies. Her philosophy about serving your food even if it comes out bad and not apologizing for is sort of the epitome of this rejection of the hide your dirty laundry ideals of the mid-century. She’s perfectly frank about her fights with Paul Child, her problems with her co-authors on the book, her difficulties with her Republican father, her failures in the kitchen and on her TV show. It isn’t in the exhibitionist way that you see so often these days either. She’s a good girl, but she won’t let herself be walked all over- she is going to have her say and that’s just fair. I don’t know if I am doing a very good job describing this voice, but believe me when I say that it is as captivating in print as it is on television.

All in all, a surprisingly down to earth book from a classy lady who was much more complicated than I thought she was. Come for the food, stay for the voice of the woman telling you about it- and don’t let her talk herself down! She’s worth the price of admission and more.

Lighthearted and fun recollections of Julia's first years in France. Highly recommended for anyone already enthralled by Julia, whether by her television programs or her excellent cookbooks.

Readers who do not know Julia may find the book a little too rambling, and a little too focused on food they've never tasted and have no idea what it even is (often she does not give translations for food names).

As noted in the introduction, the book was pieced together from conversations Julia's nephew had with her. He made notes at these conversations and then arranged the events described into some kind of chronological order. It is rather ingenious, because you are only reading the high points, the things an eighty-something year old woman remembers forty years later. Due to this, however, the narrative is not in any sense a complete autobiography, more like a series of remembrances arranged chronologically.

The book is an excellent portrait of the wonders of France just after World War 2, when the country was not as modernized as it is today. Also, the story is inspiring in that it starts when Julia and Paul are already nearing what some would call middle-age. It is not just young people that discover new things and live a life worth enjoying. Of course this is obvious anyway, but it is nice to see an example of it now and then.

What a joy to read about a life lived fully, passionately, intelligently.

Loved the concept of reading about Julia And Paul Child's move to France and her introduction to and love of French cooking. Julia and Paul's descriptions of Paris neighborhoods and their immersion into the culture brought back many of my own experiences. It brought back some great memories. Her introduction to French cooking classes started casually but grew in its intensity to learn to truly "master the art". Julia could detail the meals she ate at each restaurant, as well as every meal she ever prepared...almost to the level of obsession. As her talent and her fame grew, Julia's personality became adamant and a little demanding. She became haughty and disrespectful towards anyone who did not agree with her politics (including her father). She was condescending towards anything or anyone British. She resorted to name calling for those she did not like (Woodenhead was one name she used). This did cause a loss of some friendships, but Julia and Paul Child's relationship never faltered. Although this book did cause me to want to recreate some her best recipes, I just wish I admired Julia Child at the end of this book as much as I did at the beginning of it.

A pleasure to read. The woman was a force of nature and what a joy it was to spend time with her recollections of France, from her first meal within its beautiful borders through 30 years of learning to cook and becoming the grande dame master, teacher, and icon that we all know and love.

I don’t really rate memoirs, but oh my gosh this was absolutely charming. So full of life and love