Books › My life in France
My life in France
First published 2006 · 352 pages
A joyous, butter-soaked love letter to French cuisine, late-blooming passion, and a deeply devoted marriage.
What it feels like
Reading this memoir feels like sitting in a sunlit Parisian kitchen with a dear, boisterous friend who is pouring you a glass of wine and recounting the best years of her life. The narrative unfolds at a steady, savoring pace, wrapping the reader in a warm, appetizing atmosphere filled with the scent of shallots and sizzling butter. The prose is as exuberant and unpretentious as the author herself, marked by a pragmatic optimism and a genuine delight in sensory pleasures. It is less a chronological recounting of events than a celebration of finding one's true calling late in life and the quiet romance of a deeply supportive marriage. This is a deeply comforting, life-affirming read that will delight Francophiles, passionate home cooks, and anyone who believes it is never too late to reinvent yourself.
- Mood
- appetizing
- sun-warmed
- cozy
- nostalgic
- Tone
- enthusiastic
- warm
- pragmatic
- joyful
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- finding passion late in life · the sensory joy of food · enduring partnership · cross-cultural discovery · creative perseverance
- The writing
- Exuberant, conversational, and richly sensory, peppered with French phrases and a pragmatic charm.
- The arc
- From curious and unmoored beginnings to a deeply rooted, joyful mastery of craft and self.
- Who it's for
- Food lovers, Francophiles, and anyone seeking a warm, life-affirming story about blooming late and loving fiercely.
Content notes
- historical sexism
- grief
About the book
Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she 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 them across the globe -- unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Description from Open Library.
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