Dearie - Bob Spitz

Title: Dearie: The remarkable life of Julia Child
Author: Bob Spitz
Pages (File Size): 576 (7530 KB)
Published: 2012
Challenges: E-Book, Foodies
Genre: Non-fiction, Biography
Edition: E-Book
Source: Library

Description: It’s rare for someone to emerge in America who can change our attitudes, our beliefs, and our very culture. It’s even rarer when that someone is a middle-aged, six-foot three-inch woman whose first exposure to an unsuspecting public is cooking an omelet on a hot plate on a local TV station.  And yet, that’s exactly what Julia Child did.  The warble-voiced doyenne of television cookery became an iconic cult figure and joyous rule-breaker as she touched off the food revolution that has gripped America for more than fifty years.

Now, in Bob Spitz’s definitive, wonderfully affectionate biography, the Julia we know and love comes vividly — and surprisingly — to life.  In Dearie, Spitz employs the same skill he brought to his best-selling, critically acclaimed book The Beatles, providing a clear-eyed portrait of one of the most fascinating and influential Americans of our time — a woman known to all, yet known by only a few.

At its heart, Dearie is a story about a woman’s search for her own unique expression.  Julia Child was a directionless, gawky young woman who ran off halfway around the world to join a spy agency during World War II.  She eventually settled in Paris, where she learned to cook and collaborated on the writing of what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a book that changed the food culture of America.   She was already fifty when The French Chef went on the air —  at a time in our history when women weren’t making those leaps.  Julia became the first educational TV star, virtually launching PBS as we know it today; her marriage to Paul Child formed a decades-long love story that was romantic, touching, and quite extraordinary.

A fearless, ambitious, supremely confident woman, Julia took on all the pretensions that embellished tony French cuisine and fricasseed them to a fare-thee-well, paving the way for everything that has happened since in American cooking, from TV dinners and Big Macs to sea urchin foam and the Food Channel.  Julia Child’s story, however, is more than the tale of a talented woman and her sumptuous craft.  It is also a saga of America’s coming of age and growing sophistication, from the Depression Era to the turbulent sixties and the excesses of the eighties to the greening of the American kitchen.  Julia had an effect on and was equally affected by the baby boom, the sexual revolution, and the start of the women’s liberation movement.

On the centenary of her birth, Julia finally gets the biography she richly deserves.  An in-depth, intimate narrative, full of fresh information and insights, Dearie is an entertaining, all-out adventure story of one of our most fascinating and beloved figures. (via Goodreads)


Thoughts: This my second book about Julia Child that I have read (read My Life in France last year) and I really enjoyed with the book and was quite impressed not only with Julia's life, but also with the detail of that was put into the book.  It made me want to purchased a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1 and more impressed that got published when it did.  I won't say entirely how much I was impressed with the publication of the book, but I can tell you I didn't put the book down during that section and was totally enamoured with that.

If there was one thing that impressed me about Julia Child is that she was incredibly decisive about getting the book published.  She didn't let moving around due to Paul's job and a co-author not helping out impede her to making sure that this cookbook was published; it was almost like she was a woman with a mission to make sure that American cooks were able to make the same things that were made in France and to let them know that cooking something was something to be enjoyed and to be done with a sense of purpose.  I got the impression that she believed that a meal shouldn't come from a can or a box, but rather something that was to feed not only your body, but also your soul.

Also she didn't like the whole health food movement, but believed that food should be enjoyed in moderation, rather than in large amounts.  So yes, have those foods that are fatty and not exactly good for you, but have them in moderation and have them occasionally.

While for the most part the book was really good, it was a little slow at the beginning, but once it got into her adult years, it just seemed to really get going.

Bottom line: If you are fan of Julia Child and if you are a foodie fan, I would highly recommend this book.  Highly recommended.

Rating: 4.5/5

Pages for 2013: 12129

My Life in France - Julia Child with Alex Prud'Homme

Title: My Life in France
Author: Julia Child with Alex Prud'Homme
File Size (Pages): 6828 KB (353)
Published: 2007 (first published 2006)
Challenges: 2012 Support Your Library
Genre: Memoir, Non-fiction
Edition: E-book
Source: Library


Description: Julia Child singlehandedly created a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her newfound passion for cooking and teaching. Julia’s unforgettable story – struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers to whom she sent her now-famous cookbook, a wonderful, nearly fifty-year long marriage that took them across the globe – unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years. (via Goodreads.com)


Thoughts:  I really enjoyed this book and loved the description of the restaurants that she and Paul went to when they first arrived and how she, a self admitted non-cook in her late 30s, became a cook by diving into French culture by learning the language, the customs of buying food at a local market and by taking classes at the famed Le Cordon Bleu in Paris (which was also attended by the author of Kitchen Counter School) in the late 1940s.  While I am not a cook myself (as you probably all know by know), I could really appreciate the chance that Julia took to learn to become an accomplished cook (she came across as the sort of person that has the expectations to become an accomplished cook; I think also the fact that she was trying to get to the same sort of level as Paul's mother had a large effect on her) and even though I probably will never get to the level of Julia herself (somehow we always compare ourselves to her), I think even taking the chance to cook or bake something is a step in the right direction.


I did appreciate her frankness about her frustration in writing the first cookbook and even though there was great success with the second one as well, she didn't bow into pressure into writing a third book.  I also appreciate that the book felt personal, even though it was only a glance into her private  life, and that not everything was perfect and how she worried about things just like we all worry about things and how concerns about what was going on in Paul's work in the 1950s was of equal concern for her and probably didn't make things any easier when living abroad in Europe, far away from family and friends in the States.


Also, I appreciated that she didn't constantly talk about food in the book and that you felt like you got to know Julia and her husband, albeit on a surface level, and the fun little facts that she passed along in the book (did you know that Judith Jones, the editor for Mastering Vol.1 & 2, was the person that got The Diary of Anne Frank into the hands of American readers in the 1950s, when it was just sitting on "the pile" of manuscripts that had been submitted to her while she was working for Random House in Paris?) that made the book enjoyable to read.


Bottom line: It's probably the best "foodie" memoir that I have read and for once it was more about the life of the person rather than the food, even though one could probably taste one of her famous dishes as you read the book (I haven't so I can't exactly say).  But whenever I would pick up the book, I would be transported into a world in which food wasn't just for survival, it was meant for feeding the soul and to be enjoyed by everybody around.  Recommended for those that are fans of Julia Child, those who have watched "Julie & Julia", or just generally like good food with a good glass of wine.


Rating: 5/5


Pages for 2012: 5430

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices Into Fearless Home Cooks - Kathleen Flinn

Title: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices Into Fearless Home Cooks
Author: Kathleen Flinn
Pages: 304
Published: 2011
Challenges: 2012 Support Your Library
Genre: Non-fiction, Foodie books
Edition: Hardcover and Audio
Source: Library



Description: The author of "The Sharper Your Knife" tells the inspiring story of how she helped nine others find their inner cook.

After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, writer Kathleen Flinn returned with no idea what to do next, until one day at a supermarket she watched a woman loading her cart with ultraprocessed foods. Flinn's "chefternal" instinct kicked in: she persuaded the stranger to reload with fresh foods, offering her simple recipes for healthy, easy meals.

"The Kitchen Counter Cooking School" includes practical, healthy tips that boost readers' culinary self-confidence, and strategies to get the most from their grocery dollar, and simple recipes that get readers cooking. (via Goodreads)

Thoughts: I quite enjoyed the book and learned a lot when I read the book.  One reason that I don't read a lot of foodie type books is mainly because a lot of the writers talk about the food that inspires them as cooks, rather than inspiring others to learn the proper techniques and Kathleen Flinn has certainly has inspired me to start making more of my food by scratch rather than buying my food from the center aisles.  Sure I know that I am to do that, but where do you start when you basically have little or no cooking skills and Kathleen's book clearly illustrates the fact that there is likely an entire generation of women who don't really know how to make things from scratch and rely heavily on the "center aisles" to feed not only ourselves, but also our families and to also realize that its much healthier for not only our bodies, but also our budgets to make our own food.

For me not only are their budget considerations to making my own food, but there are also health reasons.  As some of you may know, I have been battling a rash for the past month that basically came out of no where and has resulted myself to go on a more restricted diet than I have been accustomed to.  Its been frustrating, but this book gave me hope that I can eat most of the food that I have eaten on a regular basis and not break the bank doing so.  I hope that in the coming months I can tackle the recipes from the book that I photocopied and use them to my benefit (and yes, I do plan on purchasing the book).

While the breaks from the classes were nice, its hard to say if they added anything, other than maybe a few extra recipes (one of which I realize I missed, but when I purchase the book, I'll get it)

Bottom line:  This is a really good book, especially if you find yourself fumbling in the kitchen, not sure where to start.  It is a perfect book for those that are learning to live on their own and really don't know the cooking basics.  And judging by the carts that I see in the grocery store on a weekly basis, there are clearly a lot of people who could use the help!

Rating: 4/5

Pages for 2012: 4213

Sunday Salon - Me and foodie books

I don't know why but I am on a foodie book craze.  I think its in no part due to the fact that I am seeing so many of these types of books pop up in the last year or so and probably due to Julie and Julia and the success of the movie of the same title, which I have watch a number of times and is one of my favourite movies about food, right along there with Ratatouille.

It probably has something to also to do with the fact that I really want to cut down on the money that I spend on food and the fact that I am on a elimination diet to see if I have any food allergies (I had an outbreak of hives about a month ago, that weren't itchy and bumpy) and have started to realize that the vast majority of food that I get are full of salt and sugar and really want to reduce the amount that I eat (trust me after a week of chicken, white rice, white fish, potatoes, and dark green veggies sugar becomes really sweet and I try not to touch it as much).  After reading most of The Kitchen Counter School, I have started to realize that really for pennies, I can probably make most of the things that I eat and spend less on the food that I get at the grocery store.  And probably eat healthier to boot!

This is all to say that I am really enjoying the foodie books that I am currently reading, including Julia Child's My Life in France, which I highly recommend, even if you don't know how to cook.

Hope you all have an excellent and restful Sunday.

Books reviewed since my last Salon post:
• The Gift
• The Marriage Plot
• The Cat's Table
• The Help
• The Scarlet Letter
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Blood, Bones, and Butter - Gabrielle Hamilton

Title: Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Author: Gabrielle Hamilton
Published: 2011
Pages: 304
Genre: Memoir, Non-fiction
Rating: 4/5

In a sense, Blood, Bones & Butter is a memoir set in kitchens and dining rooms. Gabrielle Hamilton grew up in the food business (her father still owns a restaurant in Lambertville, New Jersey) and many of her memories waft back to her family's grand parties and elaborate food preparations. A professional dishwasher at twelve, Gabrielle graduated to catering and cooking; now she owns her own restaurant, the critically acclaimed East Village Prune. By every evidence, she can write as well as she can cook; her memoir earned designation as a "Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Books" selection for Summer 2011. (via Goodreads)


Thoughts:  I really liked this book, with the exception of a few spots where the writing was iffy, it was a really written book and I really enjoyed it.  It was one of the few memoirs that you could tell that the person who had decided on doing the memoir had actually written it and wasn't written by a professional writer, but instead by somebody who really cared about getting their story out in a way that they understood.    I haven't read a lot of food memoirs, but this one I felt like I was actually tasting the food and smelling and seeing Italy during July.  Highly recommended.

5763 / 15000 pages. 38% done!