Tag Archives: Julia Child

Recommendations for Independent Bookstore Day

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Although it’s been a while since I’ve walked into a bookstore, or any store, I still like to buy my ebooks from independent book stores. And, yes, I still read – not as much as before – but here are a few books I’ve bought and recommend:

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

For supporters of women in math and sciences, the obstacles the main character faces will ring true. Elizabeth Zott, after overcoming her miserable childhood, can’t seem to get a break as she tries to forge a career in chemistry. Sidelined by male colleagues at work and cheated out of a doctorate, she finds love with a rower and fellow scientist, only to lose him before their child is born. Her ongoing frustrations will be familiar to a generation of career women with children, but the character is also funny, ambitious, and determined. As she morphs into a modern day Julia Child, the laughs get better. A fun book with a message – as Elizabeth Egan noted in her review: ” She’s a reminder of how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.”

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Searle

Ah, to be back climbing the steps of Portofino! Searle’s story will transport you to the beautiful Italian town, and you will instantly feel its charm. Having been there (for a cooking class), the descriptions of the food, the sea, the steps, the old women, brought me back and makes me want to go again. Katy Silver takes the trip to Italy she has planned with her mother. Her mother dies but with a heavy touch of suspending belief, you will meet her anyway as Katy discovers not only the beauty of Italy but also the unexpected joy of hanging out with her younger mother.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

I didn’t become a fan of St. John Mandel until I watched Station Eleven on Netflix. The Sea of Tranquility is another catastrophe story taking the reader through three worlds in three distinct time periods, The novel opens in 1912 when the son of an aristocratic British family is banished to Canada for some rash dinner-table remarks about colonial policy, and then vaults into the 23rd century for ‘the last book tour on Earth,” with an author named Olive Llewellyn, whose home is a colony on the moon, and whose novel about a worldwide pandemic has become a surprise blockbuster, and finally to Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a loner detective living on the moon in the 25th century in a colony called the Night City. Mandel connects the plots across time to examine what really matters. A good book for fans of science fiction but also If you just need to take yourself out of the present for a while.

French Braid by Anne Tyler

One of my favorite authors, Tyler uses an area I know well as her backdrop – Baltimore. With her quiet style, Tyler slowly weaves a story of family. Jennifer Haigh in her review for the New York Times, notes ““French Braid” is a novel about what is remembered, what we’re left with when all the choices have been made, the children raised, the dreams realized or abandoned. It is a moving meditation on the passage of time.” Read her review for more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/books/review/french-braid-anne-tyler.html

The Club by Ellery Lloyd

Thrillers are always a great distraction to the world at hand, and if you are a fan of Ruth Ware, you will enjoy Lloyd’s ride. From Publisher’s Weekly: “The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members’ clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites, far from the prying eyes of fans and the media. The most spectacular of all is Island Home–a closely-guarded, ultraluxurious resort, just off the English coast–and its three-day launch party is easily the most coveted A-list invite of the decade… as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members will begin to wish they’d never made the guest list. Because at this club, if your name’s on the list, you’re not getting out.” A page turner.

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

If you know Lucy Foley from “The Guest List,” you will enjoy her latest. Like a game of Clue,  this story keeps readers guessing whodunit until the book’s final pages.

And here are a few books I have preordered and looking forward to:

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The Lioness by Chris Bohjaloan

Love Marriage by Monica Ali

Reading Cookbooks -Julia Child and Yotam Ottolenghi

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Julia Child long ago inspired me, along with my mother and grandmother, to have courage in the kitchen. They all recorded their successes in books, and reading their cookbooks has become one of my favorite pastimes. Of course, trying the recipes is a treat too.

9780385351751_p0_v3_s192x300  A friend recently sent me an excerpt in The Boston Globe of  The French Chef in America by Alex Prud’homme, Julia Child’s great nephew,  prompting me to look for this latest examination of my favorite chef.  Prud’homme co-wrote his great-aunt’s 2007 memoir, My Life in France, and he describes The French Chef in America as the story of Child’s “second act – her life after the publication of her classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”

After Julia and Paul Child returned to the United States from France, they settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she reinvented herself as a TV personality and dealt with her husband’s challenging health issues, never losing her optimistic view of the world – a role model who didn’t find her true voice until her seventies.   After reading Steven Krage’s  review,  I downloaded the book from audible and look forward to learning more about Julia Child.

9781489126672_p0_v1_s192x300   I also recently discovered Yotam Ottolenghi, the British chef with Israeli roots. His first cookbook – The Yotan Ottolenghi Handbook –  published eight years ago, has just been reissued with a shiny red cover. I found two more of his books in the library – Plenty and Jerusalem – and now have them on my shelf.

Both books are heavy with padded colorful covers.  Jerusalem focuses on traditional fare with food ranging from roasted potatoes with figs to chocolate krantz cake – better known as chocolate babka for Seinfeld fans – with step by step pictorial instructions.  Some recipes met my expectations – tabbouleh, hummus, couscous; others were a pleasant surprise – Clementine syrup cake, herb pie, lamb stuffed with pomegranate.  Plenty offers all vegetarian dishes but the desserts caught my eye: pear crostini, watermelon and feta, and Halloween soufflés.

Always looking for a new way to cook chicken, I found Ottolenghi’s recipe for roast chicken easy to follow, but finding the accompanying ingredients of sumac and za’atar required my best research skills. An easy substitute for sumac is lemon zest, and I found an easy recipe for za’atar: fresh-zaatar-rub-su-x

Grind together 3 Tbs. dried thyme, 1 Tbs. lightly toasted sesame seeds, 1/2 tsp. dried oregano or marjoram, 1/4 tsp. kosher salt, and add 1 tbsp lemon zest.

Years ago, a friend gifted me a small jar and I used it as a wonderful topping for cheeseless pizza. Just drizzle the dough with olive oil and pat in heaps of za’atar before baking. I may try it again now that I’ve found the recipe for making my own.

Yotam and Julia share the same philosophy in cookbooks, with the careful attention to detail and their determination to simplify instructions and clarify the process. Yotam noted in an interview: “So long as a recipe made sense and our readers could make a delicious meal by following it, that was that. Job done: let’s eat!”  Julia is famous for saying, “”Well, if I can do it you can do it.” Unlike Julia Child, Ottolenghi’s books have full page pictures with mouth-watering plates to tempt me to try making them. But for now, I’m content to read the recipes, look at the pictures, and  savor the food vicariously while listening to stories about Julia.

Related Review:   Cookbooks 101

 

Julia Child’s Birthday

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Two great cooks share their birthday today: Julia Child and my Italian grandmother. Both are no longer around and both believed in butter, although my grandmother was heavier on the olive oil.

Tart Dough

To celebrate, I attended cooking classes at “Université Patisserie” – a tribute to Mastering the Art of French Cooking, sponsored by a local resort. The instructor endeared himself when he noted that most French recipes originated with the Italians.

I learned how to make pâte à choux with a creamy filling, tart dough with almond flour, and then stuffed myself with treats created by the pastry chef.

Children’s picture books that channel Julia were reviewed in Ann Hodgman’s New York Times – Let’s Eat – one starred Julia’s cat.

Minette’s Feast by Susanna Reich follows Julia Child and her husband Paul as they settle into Parisian life. The entry of Minette Mimosa McWilliams Child, a Parisian cat who adopts the couple, offers a new perspective on Julia’s life in France. With beautiful color illustrations by Amy Bates, the highlights of Julia’s cooking adventures in Paris come to life, punctuated by the fussy cat who is a gourmet. Minette would never eat out of a can, and revels in the aromas of cassoulets and soufflés, but, alas, her favorite food is still a mouse.

The newest biography of the original Top Chef has just been published to coincide with her 100th birthday. Bob Spitz’s Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child is on my Kindle, and I plan to read it today while eating my grandmother’s biscotti.

Related Reviews:

Making Friends at a Certain Age

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“It takes courage” to confront a stranger to start a connection.  Alex Williams addressed making friends for those over forty in his New York Times essay – Friends of a Certain Age.

As people approach midlife, the days of youthful exploration, when life felt like one big blind date, are fading. Schedules compress, priorities change and people often become pickier in what they want in their friends…often people realize how much they have neglected to restock their pool of friends only when they encounter a big life event, like a move…

Worth rereading when everyone around you seems to have something to do that does not include you.

The sidebar by Jesse McKinley in Some Friendly Advice  offers 6 quick ways to find a friend; one is to “go it alone.”  In that spirit, I took myself to cooking demonstrations celebrating Julia Child, who will soon celebrate her 100th birthday.  People who like to eat and cook are usually friendly, and I did find new friends: Kathy, a writer from Australia, and Devra, the Coco Chanel of beautifully made ETSIS sunhats.

The best advice from the articles  – besides getting over yourself – appreciate the BFF’s you have and look for a casual friend or two – “better than total isolation.”  As the Girl Scouts sang – “one is silver, the other is gold.”

For more musings on articles, go to Read Between the Lines

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

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“You are hosting a dinner party for three writers?  Who’s on the invite list?”

When Kristin Cashore, author of young adult novels, was asked this question in the New York Times book review interview By the Book,  she answered:

“Louisa May Alcott, Madeleine L’Engle, and Hildegard von Bingen…hopefully one of them can cook and wouldn’t mind coming early to take care of that.”

When reluctantly participating in a get-to-know-you exercise and asked for one author, my response – Steve Martin – was met with disdain (they were all academics.)  Having dinner with the prolific wild and crazy guy who’s written novels (Shop Girl), plays (Picasso at the Lapin Agile), can talk about art (has a private collection), and can play a mean banjo – not to mention his sense of humor – has the potential for good dinner conversation.  Calvin Trillin could add a little spice, and if I were to add one more, of course, Julia Child (to cook).

Do you have authors you would like to meet?  maybe share a meal?

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