BlogTalk: My Life in France

In honor of Julia’s memory and our book selection, we decided to have lunch at a French bistro, Patisserie Boissiere, nestled in the heart of downtown Carmel. We had the most beautiful lunch of brioche and croissant sandwiches and French onion soup, finishing it off with a delectable chocolate éclair. As we ate, we reminisced about Julia’s own amazing meals, wishing desperately for our chance to eat meals in France, in Julia’s France, and especially in Julia’s Paris. 

But does her world exist anymore? We couldn’t help but notice the bustle of tourists overwhelming the small streets of downtown. What many years ago used to be a quiet hamlet is now a commercialized tourist trap. Carmel seems to be a façade, a shadow of the quiet little community it used to be. We wonder how tourism and this amazing access to travel have affected quintessential places like Paris. Even though this access is a positive, there seems to be a cost, a loss of sorts. We seem to lose a bit of the cultural experience as tourism starts to reshape the culture and the country/city/attraction tries to accommodate to tourism. 

So, we decided maybe to get around this, we need to make choices about how we travel. When Julia and Paul traveled, they decided to take the time and effort to really see and know the place they were visiting. She applies this philosophy to cooking; you need to take your time to become a great chef. We feel like this philosophy can be applied to anything we do. In order to be good, in order to really enjoy, in order to really see and know, you need to take your time and apply yourself. If you want the quality of experience, you need to take the time to do it right.

So, ultimately, why was she successful? 

As Melville would say, “one word: Paul.”

As inspirational and driven as Julia Child was, the support and encouragement of her husband Paul was a key component to her success. As a man, he didn’t let his own ego get in the way of his wife’s success. To the contrary, he was her number one fan, genuinely interested in her cooking and professional endeavors, and more importantly, was her best friend throughout her entire career. Whenever someone has a goal, one needs an outside source—a compassionate, logical supporter to help ease the pressure, offer some much needed perspective, or basically instill some confidence that allows one to believe that what she is doing is worthwhile, important, and feasible. Paul faithfully championed Julia throughout their lives; he helped her in the kitchen (prepping, cooking, or eating); he encouraged her culinary learning; he assisted her career in numerous ways, illustrating foods/ingredients for her cookbooks, taking pictures of Julia in action, etc.  Most importantly, he loved food and the arts, and so, his commitment to Julia’s fascination with cooking reaffirmed her own passion for it; his love of food and of what she was doing seemed essential to Julia’s persistence—to her many years of tedious work. Paul’s attitude and actions confirmed that what she was doing was meaningful, groundbreaking, and ultimately, fun!  Ultimately, My Life in France serves as a big thank-you to Paul, a big recognition that what Julia Child achieved was more of collaboration than an individual triumph.

But this memoir also brings up another point for us – this idea of fate.  One cannot help but realize that Julia’s success is well-deserved but also extraordinary.  How many other people, as talented, as charismatic, and as supported as Julia have struggled without the same recognition she received?  Julia’s experiences in the kitchen and in front of the camera lens have certainly paved the way for the celebrity chefs we know and worship today.  But, her chance was certainly a slim one.  The stars truly did have to align.  If Julia had not married a wonderful man like Paul, had not ended up in France, had not started dabbling in hobbies out of sheer boredom, had not tenaciously fought her way into advanced classes and pushed herself to be the best, would we be reading this book today?  As much as we applaud Julia’s own efforts, we also, by the end of her tale, felt a sense of awe that she was meant to discover her talent, because the universe wouldn’t have had it any other way.  With all these circumstances molding her, there is truly no doubt left that she truly was one of the rare geniuses that only come along every few decades.      

Of course, as good academics, we teach ourselves to fight the impulse to author worship.  After all, as brilliantly as she appears during her successful years, Julia was also a human being and flawed just like the rest of us.  Her grand-nephew, the ghost-writer of the memoir, does give readers a rather full sense of Julia as she aged and perhaps withdrew a bit into herself.  Her open heart and excitement dwindled as first fame and then loss of many of her old friends and collaborators slowly crept into her life. Sadly, Paul, in his later years, was in a nursing home while Julia continued to work across the country, and in France.  With only casual references to these reduced circumstances for Paul, readers are left wondering about Julia’s seeming reluctance to care for her ailing husband during those final years.  Julia’s professional break with her good friend Simca also made a reader ponder if fame and growing ego had altered her open personality.  But her rather reluctant, closed-lipped reflections on these final years simply helped to emphasize the real focus of Julia’s life, and, by extension, her memoirs – the joy of cooking fabulous meals, imagining many more in the future, and her life in France. 

So in the end, with all these ingredients mixed together, you’ve got a delectable book to devour!  Whether you marvel at Paul’s passion and support for his wife, swoon at the delectable references to recipes, or wonder at the twists of fate (and determination) that help Julia take over the cooking world, there should be something in this memoir for everybody.  Bon Appetit!

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Our next book choice is Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman, a pick by Melville.  

Here’s an excerpt from the BN.com Review: “Waldman unfurls her story with a pace befitting grief’s peculiar one-step-forward-two-steps-back progress, narrative and road merge to form a complex conduit for healing and an elegiac meditation on what within us remains after the tempest has undone an orderly life.”  

So read along with us and comment with us on the last Sunday of the month!  Keep checking “Thrice Booked” to find out how!