The French Chef in America: Julia Child's Second Act

by Alex Prud'homme

Overview

The enchanting story of Julia Child's years as TV personality and beloved cookbook author--a sequel in spirit to My Life in France--by her great-nephew

Julia Child is synonymous with French cooking, but her legacy runs much deeper. Now, her great-nephew and My Life in France coauthor vividly recounts the myriad ways in which she profoundly shaped how we eat today. He shows us Child in the aftermath of the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, suddenly finding herself America's first lady of French food and under considerable pressure to embrace her new mantle. We see her dealing with difficult colleagues and the challenges of fame, ultimately using her newfound celebrity to create what would become a totally new type of food television. Every bit as entertaining, inspiring, and delectable as My Life in France, The French Chef in America uncovers Julia Child beyond her "French chef" persona and reveals her second act to have been as groundbreaking and adventurous as her first.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385351751
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/04/2016
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	423,991
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

ALEX PRUD'HOMME is Julia Child's great-nephew and the coauthor of her autobiography, My Life in France, which was adapted into the movie Julie & Julia. He is also the author of The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century, Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know, and The Cell Game, and he is the coauthor (with Michael Cherkasky) of Forewarned: Why the Government Is Failing to Protect Us--and What We Must Do to Protect Ourselves. Prud'homme's journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time, and People.

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Julia's Second Act 5

Part I The French Chee Faces Life

1 Dinner and Diplomacy 11

2 The French Chef 31

3 Volume II 56

4 The French Chef in France 85

5 That's It 113

Part II The French Chef in America

6 From Julia Child's Kitchen 131

7 The Spirit of '76 152

8 The President, the Queen, and the Captain 167

9 The New French Revolution 180

10 A Go-To Cultural Figure 201

11 Bursting Out of the Straitjacket 227

Part III Following the Gleam

12 Prime Time 245

13 The Celebrity Chef 256

14 "Bon Appétit, America!" 262

Epilogue: A Civilized Art 272

Acknowledgments 279

Notes 283

Bibliography 303

Index 305

Editorial Reviews

10/31/2016
In in this biography, legendary chef Child's great-nephew, author Prud'homme, delights with behind-the-scenes details of Child's later life in the U.S. after years in France. Through extensive conversations with many who worked with Child and those she's inspired, including Emeril Lagasse and Sara Moulton, Prud'homme explores her adopted country; her work in television; her management of publishing deadlines; and her collaborations with longtime friends, including Simone Beck, James Beard, and Jacques Pepin. With Prud'homme's gentle hand, readers see the truth of Child behind her playful persona. Prud'homme also sheds a light on Child's passion for women's rights and public television. She turned down countless offers from big companies who wanted her to sell their popular products; she was a purist in many ways. This is a warm, nuanced celebration of "Our Lady of the Ladle." (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"It’s impossible not to love Julia Child. Alex Prud’homme’s inspiring and engaging The French Chef in America celebrates the woman—who also happens to be the author’s great-aunt." —Anita Lo, The Wall Street Journal

"A warm, nuanced celebration of ‘Our Lady of the Ladle’ . . . . [Prud’homme] delights with behind-the-scenes details of Child’s later like in the U.S. after years in France. Through extensive conversations with many who worked with Child and those she’s inspired, including Emeril Lagasse and Sara Moulton, Prud’homme explores [Child’s life]. . . . With Prud’hommes’s gentle hand, readers see the truth of Child behind her playful persona." —Publishers Weekly

"Child’s voice comes through clearly in this affectionate account of the second half of her long career." —The Richmond Times-Dispatch
 
"The French Chef in America [is] Alex Prud’homme’s new intricately and intriguingly detailed biography of his delicious, good-naturedly opinionated great-aunt, Julia Child." —Mimi Sheraton, The Daily Beast

"Prud’homme deftly chronicles the years after Julia Child left France and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. . . . As Child’s grandnephew, Prud’homme is able to provide an intimate portrait of Child’s life by sharing photographs, excerpts of key letters and daily journals, and personal memories. He dishes up the story of Child’s life from the strain of the medical issues she and her husband experienced to the pressures and excitement of becoming a trendsetter in televised cooking shows and a household name—in a manner as engaging as Julia Child herself and as delicious as one of her recipes." —Booklist

"Julia Child’s great-nephew, journalist Alex Prud’homme, treats Child’s ‘second act’ like a carefully crafted menu. He pays exquisite attention to the details without ever losing sight of the overall experience. The effervescent Child is alive and well in these pages, which include scenes from her hit TV show, The French Chef, as well as an intimate look at her boundless relationship with her husband, Paul. . . . The depth of Prud’homme’s research is evident in the particulars." —BookPage

"The French Chef in America shows us a newly famous Child, who at times struggles with her celebrity but manages nonetheless to define a new kind of food television and secure her own enduring legacy." —Smithsonian magazine (one of the Best Books About Food of 2016)
 
"Another opportunity to lap up the timeless kitchen wisdom of one of the world’s greatest cooking teachers. . . . Whereas the writing of Mastering Volume II gets scant coverage in Child’s memoir, Alex Prud’hommne picks up the narrative in The French Chef in America and gives the full backstory." —New York Journal of Books

"An affectionate but journalistically scrupulous backstage account of Child's influential second act. . . . Along with a dollop of culinary arcana, Prud'homme folds some surprises into his soufflé, showing a woman of sometimes contradictory culinary convictions: Child the passionate defender of French tradition who was a relentless agent of change in America and Child the (initial) adversary of nouvelle cuisine who eventually found classical French gastronomy too limiting. We also meet Child the driven, tireless worker, a pragmatist who put herself into the reader's or viewer's shoes; the committed teacher and steadfast friend; the kitchenware junkie; the incorruptible opponent of product plugs; the staunch defender of science who credulously championed flawed food studies; and the nonconformist with a traditionalist streak." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

08/01/2016
The great-nephew of American chef Julia Child (1912–2004) and coauthor of her memoir, My Life in France, Prud'homme picks up with Child's life where her memoir left off, after the publication of her seminal 1961 work, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Looking to create the next chapter in her career, Child began her foray into TV, which led to a number of different shows over the years. Child also undertook a second volume of French Cooking with friend Simone Beck. The lengthy process strained their relationship and eventually ended their collaboration. Constantly branching out in new directions, Child wrote many cookbooks, partnered with several famous chefs, hosted a segment on Good Morning America, and wrote for McCall's magazine. Throughout her career, Child's husband, Paul, worked with her on all of her projects and played a tremendous role in her achievements. Prud'homme's use of letters, interviews, and in-depth research deftly captures Julia's passionate personality and the evolution of her career and place in popular culture. VERDICT This will be a welcome addition for Child fans. [See Prepub Alert, 4/25/16.]—Melissa Stoeger, Deerfield P.L., IL

Library Journal

2016-08-21
Prud'homme (Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2013, etc.) explores the life of his great aunt, Julia Child (1912-2004), America’s first celebrity chef and an enduring cultural icon.Co-author of her autobiography, My Life in France, the author demonstrates how Child, a cultural mediator between France and America in the first act of her career, combined authoritative knowledge with an uninhibited, TV-ready personality in activating the taste buds of a nation. He goes behind the scenes to chronicle the development of her many TV series, from the seminal The French Chef to Dinner at Julia's, as well as her influential, often groundbreaking cookbooks. The book centers in large part on the Childs' years in Cambridge, detailing her long association with WGBH, Boston's flagship public TV station, and a rather rocky relationship with PBS. Her husband, Paul, is credited as an equal partner in a creative joint venture, making manifest contributions as editor, mentor, photographer, confidant, and sommelier to her career while studiously avoiding the limelight. Along with a dollop of culinary arcana, Prud'homme folds some surprises into his soufflé, showing a woman of sometimes-contradictory culinary convictions: Child the passionate defender of French tradition who was a relentless agent of change in America and Child the (initial) adversary of nouvelle cuisine who eventually found classical French gastronomy too limiting. We also meet Child the driven, tireless worker, a pragmatist who put herself into the reader's or viewer's shoes; the committed teacher and steadfast friend; the kitchenware junkie; the incorruptible opponent of product plugs; the staunch defender of science who credulously championed flawed food studies; and the nonconformist with a traditionalist streak. The author also gives room to Child's frequent collaborator Simone “Simca” Beck, longtime editor/midwife Judith Jones, and chef Jacques Pépin. Like Child and her recipes, Prud'homme focuses on theme and variation, eschewing a straight chronology for an affectionate but journalistically scrupulous backstage account of Child's influential second act.

Kirkus Reviews

Author-narrator Alex Prud'homme, Julia Child's great-nephew, shares the fascinating story of her rise to lasting fame and ascension to cultural icon. With a peppy narration and flawless French pronunciations, Prud’homme traces her trajectory from “The French Chef” TV series to Volume 2 of MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING to collaborations with other famous chefs such as Jacques Pépin. It's an in-depth and intimate portrait of an ambitious and driven woman who found abundant joy with her husband and partner, Paul, and in living her life on her terms. At age 90, Child told a newspaper, “I love working. You don’t have to retire nowadays, do you? I don’t even know what it would mean.” There’s plenty here for listeners to savor. J.M.D. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2016 - AudioFile