My original plan for this blog was 50 novels in a year, but a friend recommended and loaned me Julia Child‘s My Life in France. It sounded interesting enough, and though I’m usually not one for nonfiction, I figured I’d give it a try. My Life in France is an “autobiography” about Julia Child’s years in France when she decided she loved cooking and went to the Cordon Bleu, etc, etc. I put “autobiography” in quotes because her nephew, Alex Prud’homme, actually wrote the book. From the forward, written by Prud’homme:
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 take recorder with her long fingers, I realized it was distracting her, and took notes instead. (x)
Yeah, that’s not autobiography, and after I read the forward, I almost decided not to read the book at all. But, even though it’s written by someone else, I really enjoyed it much more than I imagined I would. There’s something exciting about it, and after seeing Julie and Julia, which I also liked immensely, I wanted to hear the real story. It seems that lots of the bad stuff was glossed over, like tension between Julia and Louisette when the latter wasn’t really helping with the cookbook, and Julia had her name removed as an author. That said, My Life in France is an inspiring look into Julia Child’s life that made me want to drink more wine, at the very least – and keep a diary (at which I’m generally terrible) because it’d be nice to look back after many years and remember little things, like fantastic meals, that I enjoyed.
