Julia Child: My Life in France

By now it’s probably pretty obvious that my head isn’t 100% in the cooking yet.

(I’ve baked a few loaves of French bread since my last post, but I wasn’t faithful to any Julia Child recipe, nor was it any challenge to make it a pareve product – there’s neither dairy nor meat involved in bread.)

I’m reading My Life in France, Julia’s memoir of her amazing time living in Europe, collaborating on Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and becoming the Julia Child we all fondly remember.

It truly is an amazing story for so many reasons, that the Childs wound up in France, that Julia fell in love with French food at a time when she had the flexibility to attend Le Cordon Bleu, that she met Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck at the time they were conceiving of a French cookbook for American markets, and that the book neared completion at a moment when American interests were almost ready to consider an approach to cooking that involved more than dumping ingredients out of cans.

For me, personally, it is an amazing story because of how deeply I’m able to identify with it; not simply as an armchair foodie exploring the world through flavors and trying to acquire and expand my culinary chops.  It may sound like the apex of hubris, but in reality it is due to precisely the opposite that I see strong parallels between Julia’s life and mine.

To summarize:

A graduate of a prestigious women’s college  (Smith, Vassar) moves to New York City in hopes of making it big (as an author, in the film/tv world) but meets the reality of being a twentysomething with no particular direction.  She moves home, dithers in areas of general humanitarian interest (Red Cross/United States foreign service, elections/politics),  meets her husband and moves a long way to live with him (France/San Diego.)  Not knowing what to do with her life, she falls in love with eating, cooking and thinking about food.  (Only one of us so far has gnoe to culinary school, but this is on my list of things to consider for the next few years.)

Some of her descriptions of self-doubt and self-consciousness also rang true for me.  I identify strongly with young Julia not because I consider myself enormously great (which she absolutely was) but because I think that I tend to undermine myself in the same ways that she describes in her book.  I aspire to one day discover the path that will lead me to overcome myself as Julia was able to overcome her own self-doubts and perceived awkwardness.

Of course, when I read Julie and Julia I also identified with Julie Powell.  Being a twentysomething floating around aimlessly in New York trying to figure out what my purpose was, and getting tripped up in the practicalities (day job) that stop people from pursuing and realizing what may be a completely impractical (or totally practical, but not immediately accessible) dream.

I’m not going into this expecting to find myself (with a fat book deal!) the way Julie Powell did, or a world-changing pioneer the way Julia Child did.  This isn’t so much about a destination as it is a disciplinary lens through which to examine myself, food, and the world.

I’ve finished reading My Life in France and am on to a cover-to-cover reading of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (starting with Volume I.)  I promise the actual cooking is about to start.