“My Life in France” by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme was the August book club selection for the Left Coast Cellars Culinary Food and Wine Book Club. That’s right I said August and I just finished reading it last night. I think I have been upfront with how busy I have been so now I am at least one month behind.

This is a biography written in first person style (by Alex). He did all of the interviews and arranging of the narrative directly from and with the consent of Julia. The book chronicles her life through her formidable years as an writer and TV personality. It is weighted pretty heavily toward her pre-cookbook days and the amount of content and details thin out as book goes on.

As a relatively young member to this culinary club, this was another personality in the food world that I have little exposure to. Not being around when the ‘Frenchiphile’ food craze dominated that scene, it all seems so integrated and second hand to me. But, of course she was instrumental in painting the landscape of today’s food scene. I have enjoyed learning the history and perspective of these early media pioneers. There is also a movie, I haven’t seen it yet, but I am going to watch it with my wife this month.

The most interesting aspect of this book to me was just what a labor of love and effort ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ was. I took years to develop and was a huge tome, over seven hundred pages. This was all largely done manually and over international correspondence. I have observed that many times in life it is not the final outcome that designates success but the process in which that task is done. Julia discovered a fervent delight in testing and perfecting recipes and techniques that could be achieved in the United States using imperial measurements, different tools and a culture that was more aligned with TV dinners than centuries of tradition.

It wasn’t always an easy read for me, as evident on how long it took me. The story lines were filled with names of people that breezed in and out. As seems to be customary to that generation, many of them got nicknames which added more names and I got kind of lost at times. The other criticism I had was there were a lot of French phrases in the book which made me tune out at times because I didn’t understand what I was reading.

All that being said, it definitely made me appreciate what she had accomplished in her life. I can certainly understand the technical challenges and appreciate people’s passion. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the August dinner, so I am not totally sure what the menu was. From skimming through the menu it was beef burgionon, garlic mashed potatoes, formage blanc (fresh cheese) and gougeres (pastry). There are some vague descriptions of preparations in the book, but definitely no recipes.

As for wine, there is mention of many French varietals, none that I really recognized other than Dom Perignon which champagne seemed to be very common. Pop a cork, I would recommend Pinot Noir unless you have access to a good French burgundy and build your culinary history foundation.