"MY LIFE IN FRANCE"
by
Julia Child & Alex Prud'homme

review: Tracy Durgan 1/6/10

     My Life in France, as many moviegoers know, is one of two books upon which the popular movie, “Julie and Julia,” was based. I confess I enjoyed the book more than the movie. Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme must have had as much fun collaborating as they claimed, for it is an excellent read. The famous chef's ebullient voice takes us through her years in France with enthusiasm, humor, and a sprinkling of punchy exclamations such as “Ouf!” and “Ha!” Also included are many letter excerpts, some family pictures, and several artistic photographs taken by her husband, Paul Child. My Life in France concentrates primarily on the France years —1948 through 1954—but it also includes notes on her childhood, the Childs' courtship in Ceylon, and time spent later in Germany, Washington D.C., and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

     The story begins in November 1948, as the ship SS America drifts toward dock at Le Havre, France. Julia Child admits she regarded the sight from her cabin's porthole with both excitement and suspicion. There was no way she could have known how it would change her life. When she arrived in France with Paul, she tells us, she spoke abominable French and knew almost nothing about the country— or about cooking. “[A] six-foot-two-inch, thirty-six-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian,” she had a zest for life but no real focus for it, other than her husband. France is where she found her "true calling, and experienced an awakening of the senses, and had such fun that I hardly stopped moving enough to catch my breath.” Her first French meal, at Restaurant La Couronne, was almost a religious conversion, opening her eyes to the possibility that sublime food can uplift the spirit. And what did she eat? A lunch of oysters, baguette, salade verte, fine white wine, and buttery sole Meunière, finished with cheese and coffee: “the most exciting meal of my life.” It was the meal that launched Julia Child.

     My Life In France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 2009