My Life in France - Hardcover

Child, Julia; Prud'homme, Alex

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400043468 ISBN 13: 9781400043460

Publisher: Random House Value Publications, 2006

Synopsis

The bestselling story of Julia's years in France--and the basis for Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams--in her own words.
Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, Julia Child 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 the Childs across the globe--unfolds with the spirit so key to Julia's success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of America's most endearing personalities.

About this title

Review:

"Exuberant, affectionate, and boundlessly charming . . . It chronicles, in mouth-watering detail, the meals and the food markets the sparked her interest in French cooking . . . It also tells the story of the inspired partnership between Child . . . and her husband, Paul . . . Every day in France brought a thrilling new discovery, but Child's capacity for wonder and delight co-existed with 'show me' skepticism . . . It is a wonderful picture of the most successful American export to France since Benjamin Franklin."
-William Grimes, The New York Times

"In mouth-watering detail, her learning years in Paris and the stellar career that followed."
-Meeta Agrawal, Life Magazine

"Captures her charm, warmth, and, above all, her determined and robust spirit . . . Anyone who has heard her on television will immediately recognize the frank, jovial, and embracing tone."
-John Skoyles, The Seattle Times/Associated Press


"What a joy . . . charming . . . inspiring."
-Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly

"Like a surprise nougat bursting from the center of a chocolate truffle, My Life in France also serves up her moving romance with the Renaissance man of her life . . . her husband, Paul Child."-Andrew Marton, The Philadelphia Inquirer

About the Author:

Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California. She graduated from Smith College and worked for the OSS during World War II; afterward she lived in Paris, studied at the Cordon Bleu, and taught cooking with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she wrote the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961). In 1963, Boston's WGBH launched The French Chef television series, which made Julia Child a national celebrity, earning her the Peabody Award in 1965 and an Emmy in 1966. Several public television shows and numerous cookbooks followed. She died in 2004.

Alex Prud'homme is Julia Child's great-nephew and the coauthor of her autobiography, My Life in France, which was adapted into the movie Julie & Julia. He is also the author of The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century, Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know, and The Cell Game, and he is the coauthor (with Michael Cherkasky) of Forewarned: Why the Government Is Failing to Protect Us--and What We Must Do to Protect Ourselves. Prud'homme's journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time, and People.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Value Publications
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1400043468
• ISBN 13: 9781400043460
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336