Tuesday, January 13, 2009

My Life in France or All along the Danube

My Life in France

Author: Flo Salant Greenberg

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.

The New York Times - Alan Riding

The result is a delight. On one level, it's the story of how a "6-foot-2-inch, 36-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian" — her words — discovered the fullness of life in France. On another, it recounts the making of "Julia Child," America's grande dame of French cooking. Inevitably, the stories overlap.

The Washington Post - Nancy McKeon

And so our last communication from Julia Child can double as a tour book. Quelle joie ! Child couldn't have planned it any better had she tried. Or maybe she was trying to teach us right up to the very end.

Publishers Weekly

Famed chef Child, who died in 2004, recounts her life in France, beginning with her early days at the Cordon Bleu after WWII. Greenberg, an actress for radio and commercials, does a fine job capturing Child's joie de vivre and unmatched skill as a culinary animateur. We hear Child's delight and excitement when she discovers her calling as a writer and hands-on teacher of haute cuisine; her exasperation as yet another publishing house rejects her ever-growing monster of a manuscript; and her joy at its publication and acclaimed reception after more than a decade of work. Child's opinionated exuberance translates remarkably well to audio, from her initial Brahmin-like dismissal of the new medium of television (why would Americans want to waste a perfectly good evening staring into a box, she wondered?) and frustration at her diplomat husband being investigated in the McCarthy-driven 1950s to her ecstasy about roast chicken and mulish insistence on the one correct method to make French bread at home. The seamless abridgment has no jarring gaps or abrupt transitions to mar the listener's enjoyment. Potential listeners should beware, however: this is not a book to hear on an empty stomach. Bon app tit! Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 13). (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Begun just months before her death and completed by her grandnephew, this memoir resurrects Julia's early days in France-when she didn't even know how to cook. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

"Ooh, those lovely roasted, buttery French chickens, they were so good and chickeny!" Anyone who remembers the iconic, deceased Julia Child (1912-2004)-or perhaps Dan Aykroyd's affectionate imitation of her-will recognize the singular voice. It's employed in this memoir to full advantage, and to the reader's great pleasure. As relative and writer Prud'homme recalls, at the end of her long life, Child was busily recording her years as a budding chef. In 1948, newly wed, she moved to Paris with her diplomat husband Paul, whom she had met while on wartime duty for the OSS (now there would be a story) in Asia. The first meal she cooked for him, she recalls, was "a disaster," and she arrived in France "a six-foot-two-inch, thirty-six-year-old, rather loud and unserious Californian," but in every aspect of her life, she was determined to do better. With self-effacing humor, Child recalls her efforts at learning French, finding an apartment and coping with life in a different culture. No matter how embarrassing or baffling the course of her learning curve, Child's francophilia and zest for life shine through, and nowhere more than in the pages devoted to her sentimental education at the Cordon Bleu, the world-renowned culinary institute, in whose cramped basement she "learned how to glaze carrots and onions at the same time as roasting a pigeon, and how to use the concentrated vegetable juices to fortify the pigeon flavor, and vice versa," among other talents. Matching her growing skills with a formidable armada of kitchen gadgets that will make cookery-loving readers swoon, she then recounts the difficult conception and extremely difficult birth of her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking,which brought her fame. Charming, idiosyncratic and much fun-just like its author, who is very much alive in these pages. A blessing for lovers of France, food and fine writing. First printing of 150,000; first serial to the New York Times Magazine & Bon Appetit; Book-of-the-Month Book Club main selection; Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection



New interesting textbook: Império:a Subida e Fim da Ordem Mundial britânica

All along the Danube: Recipes from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria

Author: Marina Polvay

For novices and gourmets alike, this unique cookbook offers a tantalizing variety of dishes from the shores of the Danube River. Its recipes bring Old World flavor directly into today's kitchen with such cherished favorites as "Weiner Schnitzel," "House Knedliky (Bread Dumplings)," "Hungarian Goulash," "Shrimp Sophya," and "Mititei (Romanian Sausage)." Along with a special chapter, "Christmas Along the Danube," which covers each country's holiday specialties, this cookbook also includes black and white photographs of menus, shots of regional interest, and maps and illustrations throughout. A new appendix provides information on classic Danubian wines -- the perfect complement to any dish from central and southeastern Europe.



Table of Contents:
Acknowledgementsv
Prefacexi
Introduction1
1The Black Forest: The Land of Hansel and Gretel and Cuckoo Clocks5
Appetizers9
Soups12
Salads15
Vegetables17
Fish and Seafood20
Poultry23
Meat24
Side Dishes33
Desserts36
2Austria: Mozart, Schnitzels, and Strudels48
Appetizers56
Soups61
Salads66
Vegetables68
Fish70
Poultry76
Meat79
Side Dishes89
Desserts94
3The Land of the Czechs and the Slovaks105
Appetizers110
Soups112
Salads114
Vegetables116
Fish118
Poultry121
Meat124
Side Dishes132
Desserts135
4The Land of the Magyars143
Appetizers152
Soups156
Salads161
Vegetables163
Fish167
Poultry173
Meat178
Side Dishes186
Desserts190
5Yugoslavia: Crossroads of the Balkans203
Appetizers206
Soups212
Salads214
Vegetables216
Fish218
Poultry221
Meat224
Side Dishes232
Desserts234
6Rumania: The Land of the Delta241
Appetizers244
Soups248
Salads250
Vegetables252
Fish255
Poultry257
Meat261
Side Dishes265
Desserts268
7Bulgaria: The Enigmatic Balkan Land273
Appetizers277
Soups278
Salads281
Vegetables282
Fish286
Poultry289
Meat292
Side Dishes297
Desserts301
8Christmas Along the Danube307
Germany312
Hungary317
Austria321
Czechoslovakia326
Yugoslavia329
Rumania333
Bulgaria335
9Wines Along the Danube337
Index345

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