{"id":12818,"date":"2016-09-24T13:04:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T17:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collett.me\/ap\/?p=12818"},"modified":"2016-09-24T13:04:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T17:04:58","slug":"kirkus-reviews-the-french-chef-in-america-julia-childs-second-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alexprudhomme.com\/2016\/09\/24\/kirkus-reviews-the-french-chef-in-america-julia-childs-second-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirkus Reviews: THE FRENCH CHEF IN AMERICA Julia Child&#8217;s Second Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prud&#8217;homme (Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2013, etc.) explores the life of his great aunt, Julia Child (1912-2004), America\u2019s first celebrity chef and an enduring cultural icon.<br \/>\nCo-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&#8217;s, as well as her influential, often groundbreaking cookbooks. The book centers in large part on the Childs&#8217; years in Cambridge, detailing her long association with WGBH, Boston&#8217;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&#8217;homme folds some surprises into his souffl\u00e9, 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&#8217;s or viewer&#8217;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&#8217;s frequent collaborator Simone \u201cSimca\u201d Beck, longtime editor\/midwife Judith Jones, and chef Jacques P\u00e9pin.<br \/>\nLike Child and her recipes, Prud&#8217;homme focuses on theme and variation, eschewing a straight chronology for an affectionate but journalistically scrupulous backstage account of Child&#8217;s influential second act.<br \/>\nOriginally posted at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/book-reviews\/alex-prudhomme\/the-french-chef-in-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">kirkusreviews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prud&#8217;homme (Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2013, etc.) explores the life of his great aunt, Julia Child (1912-2004), America\u2019s 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,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kirkus Reviews: THE FRENCH CHEF IN AMERICA Julia Child&#039;s Second Act - Alex Prud&#039;homme<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alexprudhomme.com\/2016\/09\/24\/kirkus-reviews-the-french-chef-in-america-julia-childs-second-act\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kirkus Reviews: THE FRENCH CHEF IN AMERICA Julia Child&#039;s Second Act - Alex Prud&#039;homme\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Prud&#8217;homme (Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know, 2013, etc.) explores the life of his great aunt, Julia Child (1912-2004), America\u2019s first celebrity chef and an enduring cultural icon. 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