Détails sur le produit

• Rang parmi les ventes Amazon: #710 dans Livres
• Publié le: 2009-06
• Langue d'origine: Anglais
• Reliure: Poche
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Famed chef Child, who died in 2004, recounts her life in France, beginning with her early days at the Cordon Bleu after WWII. Greenberg, an actress for radio and commercials, does a fine job capturing Child's joie de vivre and unmatched skill as a culinary animateur. We hear Child's delight and excitement when she discovers her calling as a writer and hands-on teacher of haute cuisine; her exasperation as yet another publishing house rejects her ever-growing monster of a manuscript; and her joy at its publication and acclaimed reception after more than a decade of work. Child's opinionated exuberance translates remarkably well to audio, from her initial Brahmin-like dismissal of the new medium of television (why would Americans want to waste a perfectly good evening staring into a box, she wondered?) and frustration at her diplomat husband being investigated in the McCarthy-driven 1950s to her ecstasy about roast chicken and mulish insistence on the one correct method to make French bread at home. The seamless abridgment has no jarring gaps or abrupt transitions to mar the listener's enjoyment. Potential listeners should beware, however: this is not a book to hear on an empty stomach. Bon appétit!
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Alex Prud'homme's writing of his great-aunt Julia Child's memoirs is elegant, enthusiastic, and entertaining. Fans of "The French Chef" will thoroughly enjoy the story of how she stumbled upon a love of French food and culture as a newlywed in France. Although abridged, the story flows well, slowly unfolding the triumph of publishing her masterpiece, MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING. Sadly, Flo Salant Greenberg's reading fails to rise to the level of such a public personality. Her French pronunciations are lovely, and, overall, she carries the prose forward, but her readings of Child's actual quotes don't do justice to a woman who seemed generally unable to contain her enthusiasm in life. H.L.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Booklist
Knowing little about the country and less about its cooking, Child sailed to France with her new husband in 1948. Her first meal after debarking, a simple sauteed sole, opened to her (and to posterity) a new world. She began her French sojourn as the underemployed and ever-curious wife of a diplomatic officer, frustrated at being unable even to speak the language. Language classes led to cooking classes, then to partnering with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle in an American book contract. Child's devotees know the basics of this story, but the details reveal the gradual education of Child's palate, her anti-McCarthy politics, her intense love for her husband, and her boundless capacity for hard work. Although Child died before this memoir compiled from her papers reached completion, her grandnephew Prud'homme proves a worthy editor. In seamlessly flowing prose, the text follows Child's growth as a cook into one of the best and most influential teachers of the twentieth century. Like Child herself, this memoir is earnest but never pedantic. Her eye for the ironic, her sense of humor, and her sharp sensitivity to the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and colors that surround her make lucid, lively reading. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Commentaires clients

A LIFE WELL LIVED REMEMBERED
Rather than a complete biography this ebulliently phrased memoir covers the years Julia and her beloved husband, Paul, spent in France (1948 - 1954). Paris was where the the woman remembered as the doyenne of French cooking got a rather late start on what was to be an enormously succesful career.

Paul and Julia met in Ceylon where both worked for the Office of Strategic Services, and married in 1946. Two years later Paul was assigned to head the exhibits office of the U.S. Information Service in Paris. A painter and photographer who had been to France earlier he was well suited for the task. On the other hand, Julia had never been to Europe, came from a middle class, conservative California family and by her own description was "six-foot-two-inch, 36-year-old, rather loud and unserious." Little did she know what a life altering experience France would be.

She well remembers their first meal in Rouen which she described as "absolute perfection. It was the most exciting meal of my life." Thus began her love of French food, in fact for all things French - the markets, the people, the restaurants, the countryside. At that time she was an average cook at best but determined to learn how the French prepared such glorious food. To that end she learned the language and then enrolled at the famed Cordon Bleu. Surely no student has ever worked harder, more doggedly or found as much joy in food preparation as Julia. She wanted to know every infinitesimal detail of each dish, including the whys and wherefores of ingredients chosen, and variants in cooking time.

Eventually this devotion to French cuisine led to a partnership with two French friends (Simone Beck and Laced Bertholle) in a cooking school and from that to dreams of a cookbook for the American market. There was a very long road ahead filled with happiness, surprises and disappointments but the book was published at last. This, of course, led to Julia's television series and more cookbooks.

My Life In France is filled with rhapsodic descriptions of dishes and accompanying wines as well as details of keeping house in a country still recovering from a devastating war. Due to Paul's career the Childs moved from Paris to Marseille to Bonn to Washington to Oslo and then Paul's retirement. Julia met every challenge with pluck, purpose and bonhomie. Hers was a life well lived, thoroughly enjoyed, and vividly remembered.

- Gail Cooke

Fantastique
Un petit livre fantastique sur la vie de Julia et son mari Paul en France de 1948 à 1960... ils vivent à Paris et ensuite Marseille et découvrent la cuisine "bourgeoise" française.
Sa Légion d'Honneur reçue en 2000 est amplement méritée.