I just finished reading Julia Child's memoir My Life in France, which on the whole was less interesting than I'd hoped. It's more of "how I spent twenty years writing a two-volume cooking book" than "life in France in the 50s." Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but the title and dust jacket mislead me and I had no prior knowledge of Julia Child other than the name seeming vaguely familiar.
(Actually, I have read one other book about Julia Child, if only tangentially. Julie and Julia is about someone roughly my age setting out to cook through the entire first volume of Child's book in one year, which sounds like a great premise, but the book sucked. I won't go into more detail; there are plenty of two- and one- star reviews on Amazon. Which I should have paid more attention to.)
One thing that did pique my curiosity was Child's description of spending a couple years, off and on, figuring out how to make baguettes in a home oven. I was curious, so I googled it, and sure enough, someone has transcribed the recipe for the internet. In the book, this was seventeen pages. That is one intimidating recipe.
Here is more, with commentary and pictures.
You know, I can take or leave baguettes, but French croissants? That might be worth the effort. (Grocery store croissants are invariably nasty, and the nearest specialty baker is (a) a 20+ minute round trip a way and (b) sometimes out of croissants already anyway when I get there. Grr.) Then again apparently croissants are harder than they look. "Instant stuff in a can?" Idiot.
Now I'm hungry.
1 comment:
At my local farmer's market, we have a French baker. She makes really yummy pain au chocolat and it was as good as the stuff in Paris. If you want a interesting book about a French chef, you should check out Clementine in the Kitchen. I'll let Amazon do the description for you.
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