Book review by Jane
I heard on the radio or on TV that Julia Child was involved in some kind of spying for the government. This raised questions for me, because I remembered watching Julia Child’s cooking demonstrations as a kid and thought she just couldn’t be. I thought she was European, on top of that. In this memoir, it turns out, she was an American who taught French cooking for American cooks. I always thought she had somewhat of an accent, but I guess that was just me thinking she did because I thought she was from Europe.

I loved this woman’s story and felt like she was actually living the life she wanted to live. Of course, she mostly talked about a time in her life when she was more in command of what she did—her thirties and forties. She had a husband that she was crazy about, and they had no kids. Julia Child decided to go to school for cooking while her husband worked for the U.S. Government in France. The schooling was intense and I thought any other husband would have been a pig about it, but Paul was supportive of Julia and did not complain overtly. He did make his opinion known, and was very involved in her life, however. Paul ended up retiring and helping Julia with some projects, as he was a photographer. I love the photos that he took sprinkled throughout this book.

Julia Child’s projects that propelled her television career was a cookbook that she managed to write with French friends of hers. The book describes the writing and publicity of the cookbook. She explained how that ended up with a TV show in the States. Many people in France hadn’t even heard of her, but in America, they had. I liked how she detailed the work that went into this first cookbook. It was a grand clue into how to be successful at something you love to do. You won’t find any recipes in this book, but there are a few cooking tricks mentioned. I now know how to properly scramble eggs (but I haven’t tried it yet). She talks about her friends and mentions some of their accomplishments and the times they had together, which is mostly eating and cooking. It is just more proof that cooking does bring people together.

The co-writer of the book is her husband’s relative, Alex Prud’Homme. He looks like Paul if you compare the pictures in the book. It looks like him on the cover, but it is Paul. Julia Child died the same month that she wrote the forward for this book—August 2004.

Jane.