New
Book on Julia Child Reveals Gusto for Life
By FBWorld Team
Still
a Julia Child fan? Here's a new book. "Julia Child
Rules/Lessons on Savoring Life".
Much
has been written about the chef, TV star and author, Julia
Child. ("Mastering the Art of French Cooking,"
"The Way to Cook"). But anyone with even the
slightest interest in cooking and pop culture may find
it hard to resist this series of epigrammatic guidelines
for living large, especially when they come from a master
at doing just that.
This
is not the first time that Karen Karbo, the book's author,
has immersed herself in a lighter approach to biography.
She is also the author of "How Georgia Became O'Keeffe:
Lessons on the Art of Living" and "The Gospel
According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's
Most Elegant Woman" (in addition to her novels, short
stories, essays and reviews).
Child
feels like a natural addition to the list. "She despised
rules," Karbo writes, "and her lifelong way
of dealing with them was, in any given situation, to neglect
to know them."
Thus,
the first rule: "Live with abandon." The first
chapter's first anecdote, all about a cross-country trip
made by Julia McWilliams and the man she would marry,
Paul Child, has a boozy charm: "A bottle of vodka
and a thermos of mixed martinis rolled around the back
seat of Julia's Buick. It was a time before air-conditioned
vehicles and open-container laws." It was also a
time when women were supposed to know their place, a maxim
that Child seemed to ignore or miss altogether.
Another
rule (and chapter title): "Learn to be amused,"
in which Karbo describes Child's years at Smith College:
"She spent her time partying and continued to specialize
in pranks large and small." Ultimately, Karbo writes,
"her college education, an excellent one by all standards,
did nothing to inform her future."
Rule
No. 4? "Obey your whims," a chapter in which
Karbo explains how those whims led Child to Washington,
D.C., during the war, to the OSS, and to what is now Sri
Lanka, where she worked with Paul Child, whom she married
in 1946. Karbo continues with the Childs' experience in
post-war France and Julia's adventures in "cookery-bookery."
Other
rules (and chapters):
Cooking means never having to say you're sorry.
Karbo
describes a scene in which Child prepares French onion
soup for "The French Chef," her classic PBS
show. After slicing and simmering and grating, Child then
pulls a casserole from the oven that appears blackened,
rather than browned ... only to pronounce it ready. "She
reassures us that this is a sensational meal, and then
comes the moment that seals the deal, that causes us to
bond with the strange cooking teacher now and forever:
She leans toward the camera and confides, 'When you've
added all those French touches, who's going to know?'"
Make
the world your oyster (stew):
"No one," Karbo writes, "told Julia that
middle-aged women weren't allowed to hog the spotlight,
or that if they did, they could only do it if they passed
as someone much younger.... Middle-age was the time of
Julia's life."
Karbo,
who includes passages on many of her own adventures in
the kitchen, is, clearly, more than a fan - she is a disciple
of sorts. When she writes how Child "stood up for
butter and cream as though they were her children,"
you may very well find yourself abandoning all thoughts
of kale and gluten-free menus. That tarte Tatin recipe
may be calling you.
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By
Alice Short of the L.A. Times
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