Warming Up Julia Child by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

 

Julia Child was the first person besides my Mom that I saw cook food. Of course, it was easier to watch my Mom, standing on a chair in our kitchen and being up close (and if I was lucky, getting to lick the beaters).  Julia Child I first saw on PBS, on a Saturday. I didn't know what to think of this woman who gestured a lot, had an interesting voice, and seemed both incredibly gifted and a bit silly all at once. She made food I'd never heard of, and wasn't sure I'd like, either. My palate was definitely 1970's Midwest child. 

It wasn't until I was much older, and my Mom had passed, that I found out she was not a born cook, and didn't really enjoy cooking much. But with eight children, she learned to cook. Julia, however, inspired me to be interested in cooking in a different way--to enjoy the process, to think about the ingredients, and most importantly, to inhale the results. She also taught me it's okay to fail sometimes, and that sometimes the end results don't look so great, but taste wonderful.

I never thought much about how Julia Child became the star that she was until I read Warming Up Julia Child. While it is true many famous people have that star quality, it's usually with the help of others that their potential develops and shines. That was also true for Julia.

This non-fiction book examines the six people who were part of Julia's life at a crucial time: the beginnings of her work on what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  While I knew this cookbook was years in the making, I had no idea just how many years Julia and her friend Simone Beck worked on it. The back and forth of letters, the visits--it's mind boggling to think they persisted in creating this cookbook. Author Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz brings their relationship to life using actual correspondence and diary entries of the two women, along with Julia's husband Paul. Simone and Paul weren't the only players in Julia's life: Avis DeVoto helped get their cookbook into the hands of Judith Jones and William Koshland at Knopf after Houghton Mifflin turned it down. Judith helped shape the final cookbook with Julia, and William's influence at Knopf proved invaluable. Finally, there was Ruth Lockwood at WGBH in Boston, where Julia became famous with her French Chef cooking show (the one I saw as a kid). The relationships between all the players are fascinating and you really get a good sense of all the work involved over the years in developing and maintaining those relationships through thick and thin. 

Though photos, voluminous correspondence, and diary entries we get a peek inside Julia's mind, Paul's frustrations in a job that made him deeply unhappy, and the ups and downs of friendships. The process of creating a cookbook is beyond difficult, and I am amazed and impressed at Julia and Simone's determination to keep moving forward for ten years. Imagine that: working on a cookbook for ten years. And that cookbook has gone on to sell over 1.5 million copies (as of 2019) and is still in print and considered a classic. 

I enjoyed this behind the scenes look at Julia's friendships and business partnerships with the people who helped her become the beloved chef we came to know. It is especially interesting to get a peek into her marriage to Paul, and just how much he supported her throughout their marriage. They truly were a perfect match. 

If you are a fan of Julia Child, this should be on your TBR list. I think in today's world we often see the finished product and fail to think about the work that was required to bring that product to fruition. Julia was brilliant, and lucky to be surrounded by a group of people who believed in her, believed in her cookbook, and worked hard to see it published. 

A big thank you to Pegasus Books for a chance to read and review this book. Publication date is April 5th (just a few days away!) and the book will be available in hardcover and ebook. 

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Warming Up Julia Child by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown

I zipped through this novel in a day--my first of 2020. It read very quickly, and I had a hard time putting it down. 

Why was it so compelling? I'm not sure. It's a dual storyline, between two women: Nellie in 1956, and Alice in 2018. Both are living in the same home, and married. Nellie is married to a man who swept her off her feet, and she quickly realizes he's not a nice man. Not nice at all. He wants a wife who is pretty, looks perfect all the time, cooks, cleans, and has babies. He's not afraid to use some physical force to keep her in line. 

Alice is a modern woman, who recently left her job in New York City under a cloud--although she's kept that bit of information from her husband Nate. He thinks she quit. Nate wants to move out of the city and start a family in a home set in the suburbs. Alice, very reluctantly, agrees. She's a big city lady, and used to working a lot. Nate makes enough money that she can stay home and write her novel. Alice and Nate buy the home Nellie had lived in 60 years before, and even though it needs a lot of work to modernize it, Nate loves it. Alice, not so much. While rummaging around in some boxes in the basement, she finds an old cookbook that belonged to Nellie. It's safe to say Nellie's spirit inhabits the home, and Alice slowly begins to immerse herself in the role of a housewife who gardens, cooks (out of Nellie's cookbook), and yes, even starts smoking again. She claims it's all for research on her novel, but wow, she starts to take on a lot of Nellie's personality. 

The novel moves back and forth between the two women. I liked Nellie quite a bit. She's trapped in an abusive marriage with very few options. Her friendship with the woman next door is really the only thing that keeps her sane. That and her gardening; she loves to garden and is very good at it. She thinks about her choices and regrets marrying Richard. Her life looks grand from the outside, but inside it's deeply troubling. 

Alice. Sheesh. At first I liked her, but as the story moves along, I found myself annoyed with her. She lies, and keeps lying and makes a heck of a lot of bad choices. She doesn't want to have a child right away, and can't tell Nate how she feels. Instead she's sneaky, and that leads to big issues. She has never come clean to Nate about her job, and why she was fired. She's taken up smoking, but hides it from Nate. She's so unhappy, but instead of communicating that to her husband, she just gets more resentful and keeps adding lies upon lies. 

Both women resent their roles as "housewives". Nellie really just wants to be alone with her garden. I'm not quite sure what Alice wants. I found Nellie's story to be much more interesting. While I wasn't surprised at what happened, it was fun to watch it unfold, along with Alice's dramas. I felt sorry for Nate. He seemed completely lost and clueless. He also made a really dumb mistake, but he was genuinely confused as to who Alice was becoming. My gut tells me that Nellie's spirit was influencing Alice, but it's never stated in the novel. 

I guess you could take this as a novel about women fighting to be themselves in a marriage, figuring out who they are, and working towards that happiness. Or, like me, you could just read the novel as a clever tale of one woman's revenge on an abusive husband. I was dissatisfied with the ending, because Alice and Nate are kind of left hanging. I would have liked to know more about Nellie after 1956. 

I think this would make a good book club selection. Plenty of themes to talk about, and I'm sure readers will either really like Alice, or really dislike Alice. 

Rating: 4/6 for a tale of two women, living decades apart in the same house, and the false lives they lead. Not a thriller, but an interesting look at what is expected of women as wives and mothers, and the stress it can cause a woman to try and fit into those molds. 

Available in hardcover and ebook.

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Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown