Not everything has to be new
A couple miles from our house in Lewiston is a thrift shop run by the Idaho Youth Ranch, a non-profit organization that provides emergency shelter, residential care, job training, and therapy for youth and families. Theirs is one of several thrift shops in town, and the one that we visit occasionally. When you’re starting from scratch to furnish a house, like we’re doing, not everything has to be new.
The IYR store is interesting because in addition to several aisles of dishes, kitchen gadgets, tools, assorted electronic discards, and a dozen racks of used clothing, they also have a large selection of books. These are neatly shelved and arranged in some logical categories – hardcover fiction, hardcover nonfiction, (relatively) new releases, paperback fiction, etc. I spent 30 minutes in the book section during our first visit and came away with a couple hardbound nonfiction books.
One of them was Julia Child’s “My Life in France”.1 I just finished reading it last week and wanted to share my impressions.
How the book came about
“My Life In France” was a collaborative effort between Julia Child and her great nephew Alex Prud’homme, a professional writer. Julia’s husband, Paul, had suggested she write a book about their early life together, using letters they had each written to family members as source material. Paul died in 1994, but Julia did not give up on the idea. In 2003, when Julia was 91, she mentioned the idea to Alex and he offered to help her with it. In the Forward to the book, Alex described their creative process:
For a few days every month, I’d sit in her living room asking questions, reading from family letters, and listening to her stories. At first I taped our conversations, but when she began to poke my tape recorder with her long fingers, I realized it was distracting her, and took notes instead. The longer we talked about “little old France,” the more she remembered, often with vivid intensity – “Ooh, those lovely roasted, buttery French chickens, they were so good and chickeny!”
Many of our best conversations took place over a meal, on a car ride, or during a visit to a farmers’ market. Something would trigger a memory, and she’d suddenly tell me about how she learned to make baguettes in Paris, or bouillabaisse in Marseille, or how to survive a French dinner party – “Just speak very loudly and quickly, and state your position with utter conviction, as the French do, and you’ll have a marvelous time!”
I can imagine that Alex had a marvelous time listening to these stories and getting them into written form. He said he would take his notes and write up vignettes, which Julia would edit – correcting his French and adding new details as she recalled them. She was, Alex said, an exacting editor.
Julia died in August, 2004, before the book was finished. Alex spent the next year completing it.
Alex says in the Forward that “Almost all of the words in these pages are Julia’s or Paul’s”. And after the Forward, we don’t hear his voice. He completely disappears, and the only voice we hear on the pages is Julia’s.
How the book is organized
The book is divided into two parts.
Part One, about ⅔ of the text, covers Julia and Paul’s life in France from 1948 until 1954, when they lived in Paris and then in Marseilles. It includes her account of studying at Le Cordon Bleu, a renowned French cooking school, and later starting a school in her home with two friends, Simone (Simca) Beck Fischbacher and Louisette Berholle. Simca and Louisette also became Julia’s collaborators on their cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.
Part Two describes Julia and Paul’s later postings in Germany and Norway; their life after moving back in the US; and later trips to Europe to stay at “La Peetch”, a small house they built in Provence. The second part also tells of the lengthy ordeal that Julia, Simca, and Louisette went through to get “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” published. Julia also describes how the TV show, “The French Chef” came into being and how it evolved over time.
One of my favorite sections
Throughout the book, Julia is candid about the details of her life. She describes her early upbringing as “being raised in a comfortable, WASPy, upper-middle-class family in sunny and non-intellectual Pasadena, California”. She graduated from Smith College (the same school her mother had attended) in 1937. After working a series of lackluster jobs for several years, she moved to Washington, DC in search of more adventure. When World War II broke out she enlisted in the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, a US government intelligence agency.
During her first assignment in Ceylon, she met Paul. He was ten years older than her and had traveled the world before the war. They bonded over a shared interest in learning more about local customs and food. They were later transferred to Kunming, China, where Julia notes, “we were becoming a couple”.
After the war, they returned to the US and were married in 1946. Paul went to work for the United States Information Service (USIS) and in 1948 was offered a position in Paris, France. Julia said she “tagged along”.
Their first meal in France marked a turning point in Julia’s life. They stopped in the town of Rouen, en route from Le Havre to Paris, and had lunch at Restaurant La Couronne. Paul, who spoke fluent French, talked with the maître d’ and ordered sole meunière. Julia remembered it this way:
It arrived whole: a large, flat Dover sole that was perfectly browned in a sputtering butter sauce with a sprinkling of chopped parsley on top. The waiter carefully placed the platter in front of us, stepped back, and said: “Bon appétit!”
I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume. Then I lifted a forkful of fish to my mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly. The flesh of the sole was delicate, with a light but distinct taste of the ocean that blended marvelously with the brown butter. I chewed slowly and swallowed. It was a morsel of perfection.
Their lunch included a bottle of “Pouilly-Fumé, a wonderfully crisp white wine from the Loire Valley” a salad verte, Julia’s first taste of a “real baguette”, a dessert of fromage blanc, and strong, dark coffee.
After lunch, “Paul and I floated out the door into the brilliant sunshine and cool air. Our first lunch together in France had been absolute perfection. It was the most exciting meal of my life.”
From that moment on, Julia became obsessed with learning all she could about French cuisine and cooking techniques. Throughout the book she shares equally vivid descriptions of her experiences in the kitchen and out.
Overall impressions
Image credit: Time
Reading this book was like sitting on a comfortable chair in a room with Julia and listening to her reminisce about her life. I suppose it’s a similar feeling to what Alex had… though we readers don’t have to worry about capturing all the details! The narrative flows easily, sometimes moving chronologically and other times backtracking to fill in details that add context.
Unlike her other books, this one has no recipes. It does have photographs of several type-written draft pages from “Mastering…”, labeled “Top Secret” that Julia sent to her sister Dorothy. Julia was constantly worried that someone would steal their recipes and beat them to publication.
Even though the book covers a period dating back over 80 years, the stories do not seem dated. True, there are occasional references to new inventions, like television. And their travel between the US and Europe was always aboard ship. But otherwise, the events described could have happened last week.
I have two quibbles with the book. Both are minor and did not interfere with my enjoyment of the book.
One is that many of the photographs in the book do not have captions. This is not much of a problem, as they complement the text that precedes them, but a bit of detail would have been nice.
The other is that the book is inconsistent in providing translations for the French words and phrases that Julia included. Some did not need translation, as they have been co-opted into English (like “pièce de résistance” or “beurre blanc”) or were easily understood in context (“crêpes Suzettes flambées au Grand Marnier” – yes, please!). But some phrases needed to be translated to understand the humor of the situation.
One example was Julia’s account of having an electrician investigate a problem with the wiring in their apartment in Marseilles – turning on the stove caused the lights to go out.
… he fooled around with it a bit. Somehow he fixed the problem, but even he didn’t know what he’d done. As he put on his beret and lit up his cigarette, he said, “Mais, il y a des mystères dans la vie.””
Translation: “But there are mysteries in life.” (As anyone knows who has done a DIY project on an old home.)
Conclusion
Having only seen Julia in old clips from her TV shows, I had a very narrow impression of her – one that was undoubtedly distorted by Dan Ackroyd’s 1978 parody on Saturday Night Live.2 This book gave me great insight into her personality, sense of humor, the enduring love she had for Paul, and her seemingly limitless joie de vivre.
Bonus Content
Here are a few extra items I found while doing my research for this post. I hope you enjoy them.
The French Chef, Season 1
Several episodes of Julia’s TV series “The French Chef” are available on YouTube. One that caught my attention was titled “Dinner In A Pot”.3 This was Season 1, episode 23 and aired on July 13, 1963. The kitchen set was probably state-of-the-art for 1963. And the oven and cabinets are almost identical to the ones in our house in Lewiston.
More to watch
You can find a list of all nine seasons of The French Chef by doing this Google search. Many of the episodes are available on Pluto TV, a free service that we’ve been using lately. Here’s Season 1, Episode 1: “Boeuf Bourguignon”. (Click on the image to open Pluto TV.)4
Here’s the link, just in case: https://pluto.tv/us/on-demand/series/5f9324bc184e2e001a743cc1/season/1/episode/60afaeab308e9e00133df38d
Until next time, Bon appétit!
Mike
The Writer
What book has captured your attention lately. Share your impressions in the comments below or via the Contact Us form.
- This is a direct link to bookshop.org. If you buy a book from them, you can designate that a portion of the sale price be given to an independent bookstore of your choice. Yes, you’ll pay a bit more than buying at Amazon, but the difference benefits independent bookstores, not a billionaire. We do not receive any affiliate payment if you buy a copy. If that changes in the future, we’ll let you know ↩︎
- Apologies, but YouTube videos might not be viewable by readers outside the US. Turn on your VPN and maybe they will work. ↩︎
- Same note – may not be viewable. ↩︎
- Same disclaimer. Sorry! ↩︎
What a delightful serendipity! I can hear her voice in my head as I read some of those quotes, and, of course, now I’m hungry! BTW, on Saturday, Sarah and I went over to Galeto for a late lunch and an older woman and man came in and sat next to us. I was eating the “bife hamburguer” and she nodded and order it too. The waitress seemed to make a fuss over her and then the manager came over and also made what seemed like a very impressive welcome to her. Anyway, when her burger was placed before her, I said something like “Está o melhor” and she then pointed to my placemat which includes the history of the restaurant and how it was opened in 1966 by a family from Brazil. She tapped that sentence and then pointed to herself and smiled! Uau! We both enjoyed our burgers and she said my Portuguese “está muito bom!” Sacre bleu!
On we go!
David
I hate to say I haven’t had time to keep up on your travels Mike. It took the promise of a good book report for me to learn that you were back stateside. I hope to find time to drop you a line in the coming weeks, and hopefully we can catch up.
Hi Scott,
Thanks for jumping in. It’s great to hear from you. I’m looking forward to catching up, now that I’m only 3 time zones removed from you.
Mike
Thrift shops are the best places to find interesting books you might not normally consider purchasing. This one sounds like a treasure! Thanks for sharing this. -CW
Hi Carol,
We are long-term thrift store shoppers. When our kids were little, going to the local one in Memphis was a fun outing on Saturday mornings. One daughter referred to it as the “grift shop”, but that was years before “grift” became a presidential sport.
Have a great week!
Mike
This is one of my favorites. I picked it up at Costco and have read it twice. I enjoyed reading your excerpt from the forward on how Alex captured the essence of the book. You’re report is spot-on!
Julia’s cookbook saved me in my childhood from the meals of fishsticks and other processed foods my mother would prepare for my older siblings, as she discovered it in the early 60’s. Thank you Julia!!!
I hope you are enjoying your lives back in the States. I love reading your newsletters! If you’re ever in WA State in the summers …
Hi Maggie,
It’s great to hear from you. I understand wanting to read the book twice. I haven’t started it again, but it’s one I’ll return to. We are right across the Snake River from Washington, but the opposite side of the state from you. We’ll keep in touch and if we come toward Seattle…
Mike
Thanks Mike. Julia taught me to cook. Both of my parents worked outside the home and my mother was not an accomplished cook. She would leave me with ingredients and instructions for the same 4 dishes every week. Thankfully,my father brought home pizza on Friday, we typically dined out on Saturday and Sunday we ate mom’s food. Anyway, I watched The French Chef on PBS and learned to cook.I have also enjoyed the Apple(?) series and the movie…all these made me feel like I know this lovely and accomplished woman.
Hi Nancy,
Thanks for sharing your recollections. I think your experience may have been a common one, as many people learned to cook by watching Julia. She comes across as personable and approachable on her shows and in her books, so many of us feel we know her.
Bon appetit!
Mike