My Life in France by Julia Child

Taking a little break from my true love of fiction, I recently finished My Life in France by Juila Child. Like everyone else, I rediscovered Julia Child with the recent release of the movie “Julie & Julia.” I loved the movie very much as it combined many of my favorite things – cooking, blogging and misguided souls discovering their purpose in life later than most. I only wish I would have thought of the idea to cook through Child’s masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog about it. Who knows, it could have been Jen & Julia.

My Life in France was on the whole a good book; engaging at times and slow at others, I mean really there is only so much you can read about butter. And I do really love butter. But a few things surprised me about Julia Child. For starters she was a wonderful writer. I believe big sections of the book were adaptations of her letters written to various people over the years. Secondly, she was thirty-four when she married which in 2010 isn’t exactly unheard of but in 1946 was almost scandalous no less to a man ten years her senior whom she had met while they both were in the O.S.S. serving in Asia during WWII. The last surprising thing and my biggest “take away” is that Julia Child did not start cooking until she was thirty-seven. Imagine such a delay in finding one’s true calling? There is hope for me yet.

I would be amiss to not mention Julia Child was born and raised in our own faire Pasadena. I need to follow the lead of so many of my fellow bloggers and visit her house. Maybe I could leave a stick of butter on the mail box like Amy Adams’ character did at the Smithsonian.

Next up, just in time for spring training, Vin Scully’s Pull Up a Chair.