Forkful Book Club: Mastering the Art of Julia Child

Oh, bugger! I do so hate it when I’m trendy.

I want to be an innovator. I want to stumble upon things that no one has ever stumbled upon before.  I want to be the Christopher Columbus of culinary stalkerdom!

Alack, I am not. I am way too busy to be at the cutting edge, and a stalker that is a slacker is alas demoted to groupie. That’s how I feel about Julia Child.

First of all, let me first admit that I did read Julie & Julia, but not because it was super popular. I read it as research, as I too am a blogger (if you haven’t guessed by the very fact that you are here reading my blog at this very moment). I write about food, both for fun and for a living. The fact that someone — someone who lives a life very similar to my own — somehow made a book out of her blog and a movie out of her book was just too much to pass up. I had to read it.

Then I watched the movie, because it was conveniently timed with the ending of my reading the book. Oh, gosh, gee-willigers, I am just getting lamer by the minute aren’t I?

Let me say this, even after reading the book and watching the movie, I really hadn’t given that much thought to Julia Child. She was a cute as a gargantuan button, lil ole lady, but she was never all that sexy when it came to food.

My aunt is a professional chef. She had met Julia and cooked with her before she died. My aunt, who … well, I don’t think likes many people, did like Julia and I think that says a lot about this amazon kitchen goddess character.

I’ve flipped through her cookbooks from time to time, I’ve even seen episodes of The French Chef on random moments in PBS re-rundom, but I never felt any particular urge to stalk Julia Child. That is, until, I was sitting around the set of a film I recently shot. One of the stars of the movie happens to both appear on screen and work as a producer at The Food Network, and this particular scene of the movie was shot in a restaurant.
 
Naturally the cast’s witty backstage banter turned to food, my favorite subject. One of the actors, after learning of my downright obsession with all things food related asked if I had read My Life in France, stating it was just about the most endearing food book she’d ever read.

Embarassed, feeling like an F-grade foodie, I said no.

The next day, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought it. I will not be out foodie’d by an actor! (Even though I am an actor. Obviously I’m battling some feelings of professional inadequacy here.)

I saved Julia’s memoir for just the right moment. This past weekend I spent the majority of my time on an airplane. Voila! What better time to be whisked (no pun intended) off to France in the life of Julia Child when I myself was being whisked off. Not to France, but to the ever so glamorous Dallas, Texas. The similarities are endless.

Let me just say: this book is a romance novel at heart. It is a big wet kiss to France, her husband Paul, her friends Avis and Simone, and most especially to food. I fell hard for Julia.

“My Life in France” was published in 2004, shortly after Child died, and I really can’t think of a more beautiful way to pay tribute to your life. The book follows Julia through the beginning of her marriage to Paul, which incidentally was the beginning of her love affair with food, through pretty much the end of her life. Unlike chefs that enter the kitchen due to passion, Julia entered primarily out of boredom…the passion came later. I respect that.

I’m not sure how much of this book is ghost written and how much Julia herself put down herself (EDITOR’S NOTE: Alex Prud’homme, Julia’s grand-nephew, wrote this book for and with her), but let me tell you she is as effervescent on paper as she was ever on camera. You really can’t help but fall a wee bit in love with her. While it seems that Julia never had a problem ingratiating herself with just about anyone, I can’t imagine it being easy to charm the pants off of the masses, especially the French masses, when you’re an Amazon in the land of Pygmies. But charm she did. She’s just so damn likable — you almost hate her for it.

You know how parents always say they love seeing the world through their children’s eyes? Sappy yes, but I kind of get how they feel.  I loved seeing food through Julia’s eyes.  Every time she tasted something new I almost ate a page of the book. Every time she learned how to make a delicious sauce I wanted to hug her. Every time a publisher passed on Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I wanted to make her a piping hot mug of cocoa and assure her it would be alright, that she would be the most well known celebrity chef of all time … one day.

I won’t give the whole book away, or describe every scene in detail. I will say this is a great book. I really wasn’t expecting it to be at all. Julia can write, she always could, just flip through that massive tome of a cookbook of hers. I must say she writes circles around Julie Powell, sorry Julie Powell. I’m about to get super lame here, but theres just this joie de vivre in everything she touches, and the typewriter seems to be no exception.

Written at the end of her life, Julia could see her life in retrospect in a way that only comes with years of life and experience. And I’m sure with age comes a little romanticizing. I don’t care though. This book was like a literary dessert. It filled me full of warm gooey feelings and made want a nap.

And quite a good length for a plane ride.

Tags: Cookbooks, french, juliachild, Recipes

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Forkful Book Club. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.