My Life in France by Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme

★★★★

Julia Child gives hope to all late bloomers; she didn't even begin to study French cooking until she was 37 years old, and then she managed to learn enough to begin writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking within 5 years! Her dedication to her own self-education, to her own emotional and intellectual growth, is inspiring. Her ebullient personality and positive, practical attitude is contagious. Anyone who uses words like "cookery-bookery" and gives nicknames to so many people and things has got to be an interesting person!

It was fascinating to read about the process by which she co-wrote the first comprehensive French cookbook, about how she herself had to do research to learn about techniques and dishes before including them in her book, and about some of the behind-the-scenes drama.

As indicated in the book's title, Julia Child wrote about her life; she did not limit the book to kitchen-related anecdotes. She opened up about her relationship with her husband Paul (with whom she had a beautiful partnership in every sense of the word), and she wrote candidly about her father (with whom she disagreed vehemently over politics).

And though the title focuses on her time in France, thankfully, Julia Child continued to tell her story through her experiences in the U.S. as the host of the first ever TV cooking show. (What a huge contribution to American culture, considering how popular cooking shows are now!)

I loved the fact that photos were interspersed throughout the book as the people and places in the pictures were referenced in the text. I've always disliked the way most non-fiction books include photos only in one or two middle sections, forcing interested readers to page back and forth between the text and photos.

I didn't, however, like the way many French phrases were untranslated. I might expect some cuisine-related phrases to go untranslated, but sometimes there were phrases or whole sentences completely unrelated to cooking that were left untranslated. With my rudimentary knowledge of French, I had to look up words in a French-English dictionary to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

By the time I finished the book, I was so impressed with how Mastering the Art of French Cooking was such a labor of love for Julia Child that now I'm tempted to buy the cookbook and teach myself some authentic French dishes!