Mastering the Art of French Cooking (2 Volume Set)
(The perfect gift for any follower of Julia Childand any ...)
The perfect gift for any follower of Julia Childand any lover of French food. This boxed set brings together Mastering the Art of French Cooking, first published in 1961, and its sequel, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two, published in 1970.
Volume One is the classic cookbook, in its entirety524 recipes.
Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere, wrote Mesdames Beck, Bertholle, and Child, with the right instruction. And here is the book that, for nearly fifty years, has been teaching Americans how.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking is for both seasoned cooks and beginners who love good food and long to reproduce at home the savory delights of the classic cuisine, from the historic Gallic masterpieces to the seemingly artless perfection of a dish of spring-green peas. The techniques learned in this beautiful book, with more than one hundred instructive illustrations, can be applied to recipes in all other French cookbooks, making them infinitely usable. In compiling the secrets of famous Cordon Bleu chefs, the authors produced a magnificent volume that continues to have a place of honor in American kitchens.
Volume Two is the sequel to the great cooking classicwith 257 additional recipes. Following the publication of the celebrated Volume One, Julia Child and Simone Beck continued to search out and sample new recipes among the classic dishes and regional specialties of Francecooking, conferring, tasting, revising, perfecting. Out of their discoveries they made, for Volume Two, a brilliant selection of precisely those recipes that not only add to the repertory but, above all, bring the reader to a new level of mastery of the art of French cooking.
Each of these recipes is worked out step-by-step, with the clarity and precision that are the essence of the first volume. Five times as many drawings as in Volume One make the clear instructions even more so.
Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of this volume is that it will make Americans actually more expert than their French contemporaries in two supreme areas of cookery: baking and charcuterie. In France one can turn to the local bakery for fresh and expertly baked bread, or to neighborhood charcuterie for pâtés and terrines and sausages. Here, most of us have no choice but to create them for ourselves.
Bon appétit!
Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking
(In this indispensable volume of kitchen wisdom, Julia Chi...)
In this indispensable volume of kitchen wisdom, Julia Child gives home cooks the answers to their most pressing kitchen questions. How many minutes should you cook green beans? What are the right proportions for a vinaigrette? How do you skim off fat? What is the perfect way to roast a chicken? Here Julia provides solutions for these and many other everyday cooking queries. How are you going to cook that small rib steak you brought home? You'll be guided to the quick sauté as the best and fastest way. And once you've mastered that recipe, you can apply the technique to chops, chicken, or fish, following Julia's careful guidelines. Julias Kitchen Wisdom is packed with essential information about soups, vegetables, and eggs, for baking breads and tarts, and more, making it a perfect compendium of a lifetime spent cooking.
(The bestselling story of Julias years in Franceand the ...)
The bestselling story of Julias years in Franceand the basis for Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adamsin her own words.
Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, Julia Child 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. Julias unforgettable storystruggles 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 the Childs across the globeunfolds with the spirit so key to Julias success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of Americas most endearing personalities.
Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams) was an American chef, author and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which premiered in 1963.
Background
Julia Child was born to a well-to-do family in Pasadena, California, on August 15, 1912. Her parents, John and Julia McWilliams, raised Julia, her sister, and her brother in comfort; the family had servants, including a cook, and the children were sent to private schools. The children, all of whom were unusually tall, loved outdoor sports.
Education
In 1930 Julia went to Smith College in Massachusetts, where she majored in history. In 1948 her husband was posted to Paris. Child quickly came to appreciate the French way of life, especially French food. She decided she wanted to learn the intricacies of French cooking and, after studying French at the Berlitz School, enrolled at the famous Cordon Bleu.
Career
After graduation she took a job as a copywriter for a furniture company in New York City and enjoyed an active social life. At the outbreak of World War II she joined the Office of Strategic Services, predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, seeking adventure in exotic locales.
After a stint in Washington she was sent abroad as she had wished, but she worked as a file clerk, not as a spy, and her experience was distinctly unglamorous-she traveled on troop ships, slept on cots, and wore army fatigues.
With Simone Beck, Child began working on a cookbook based on their cooking school experiences, and she continued her writing while she followed her husband on several postings throughout Europe. He retired in 1961, and the Childs settled in a large house with a well-equipped kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The year 1961 was a landmark year for the Childs. In addition to her husband's retirement and a major move, Child's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, was published. The book, noted for the clarity and completeness of its instructions, its attention to detail and explanation, and its many useful photographs, was an immediate critical and popular success. Child was hailed as an expert and her views and advice were much sought after.
She began writing articles on cooking for House and Garden and House Beautiful and also had a regular cooking column in the Boston Globe. In 1963, after an enjoyable appearance on a television panel show in Boston, Child expanded her efforts in television with a weekly 30-minute cooking program, "The French Chef. "
This proved even more successful than her book: with her admittedly eccentric style, good humor, knowledge, and teaching flair, she became a popular cult figure. Her work was recognized with a Peabody Award in 1965 and an Emmy Award in 1966. The French Chef Cookbook, a cookbook based on the television series, was published in 1968.
Additional television shows, notably "Julia Child and Company" (1978 - 1979), "Julia Child and More Company" (1980), and "Dinner at Julia's" (1983), were accompanied by well-received cookbooks, and in the 1970s and 1980s Child wrote regular columns for McCalls and Parade magazines and made frequent appearances on "Good Morning America" on ABC.
In addition, she was a founder of the American Institute of Wine and Food, an association of restaurants dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about food and wine. In 1989 The Way to Cook, a lengthy cookbook dealing with both basic and advanced subjects, was published, and at age 77 Child happily undertook an extended tour to promote it.
Late in 1989 her husband suffered a stroke and had to be moved to a nursing home near Cambridge. She visited daily and called frequently, but found life without her constant companion lonely. Accordingly, she kept busy with a regular exercise routine, lecturing, writing, and working on television programs. She even provided a cartoon voice for a children's video.
In 1992 her television show, "Cooking with the Master Chefs, " was produced and in 1993 the accompanying cookbook was published. In August 1992, 170 guests paid $100 or more to attend her 80th birthday party (proceeds to the American Institute of Food and Wine). And her place as a gastronomic icon was assured when she became the first woman to be inducted into the Culinary Institute Hall of Fame in October 1993.
Child lost her lifelong friend and career partner when her husband died in 1994. Not long after that she was quoted as saying that she had nothing left to write. Nonetheless the years 1995 and 1996 each brought a new book and TV series combination from the indefatigable Child: In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs (1995), and Baking with Julia (1996).
In 1997 she celebrated her 85th birthday, once again with a fund raiser for the American Institute of Food and Wine.
On August 13, 2004, Child died of kidney failure in Montecito, California, two days before her 92nd birthday.
Her last meal was French onion soup. Child ended her last book, My Life in France, with ". .. thinking back on it now reminds that the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite – toujours bon appétit!"
After the war she returned to California, where her conservative Republican father was unenthusiastic about her new beau, who was artistic and a Democrat.
Views
This one-woman dynamo continues to host an annual luxury tour to Italy for food buffs Although a staunch advocate of classic French cuisine, Child in the course of her career modified her approach to cookery to reflect contemporary needs and trends, such as developing a repertoire requiring less fat, red meat, and time.
Above all, she supported a sensible approach to eating characterized by moderation and including all types of food. She rejected what she called "food fads, " which she held responsible for widespread unhealthy attitudes toward eating in the United States. In her work she endeavored consistently and successfully to enhance the public's awareness and appreciation of, and need for, wholesome, skillfully prepared food.
Quotations:
She recognized the need for advertisement and frankly enjoyed the attention: "You've got to go out and sell it, " she declared. "No sense spending all that time-five years on this one-and hiding your light under a bushel. .. . Besides, I'm a ham. "
Membership
She joined the women's cooking club Le Cercle des Gourmettes, through which she met Simone Beck, who was writing a French cookbook for Americans with her friend Louisette Bertholle.
She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000
Connections
While in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1943 she met Paul Cushing Child, a member of a distinguished Boston family. Although his particular branch of the family was not rich, he had traveled widely, pursued several careers, and, at 41, was a sophisticated artist working as a cartographer and as the designer of Lord Mountbatten's headquarters. Although she was ten years younger and several inches taller, the two were immediately attracted to each other.
He admired her unaffected manner, and she found his affectionate nature and cosmopolitan outlook irresistible. The romance bloomed when both were assigned to China, and it was while there that Child, a noted gourmet, introduced her to cooking. Although they were in love, Julia and Paul were reluctant to commit to a permanent relationship during wartime.
After the war she returned to California, where her conservative Republican father was unenthusiastic about her new beau, who was artistic and a Democrat. She was undeterred, however, and she began to study cooking at a school in Beverly Hills.
On September 1, 1946, Julia and Paul were married, and the couple moved to Washington, D. C. , where he had taken a position with the Foreign Service. The couple had no children.