Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Wordy Wednesday-Butter Edition

Biographies are one of my favorite types of book but I tend to read a million of them and then fade out for a couple months. Maybe it's a voyeristic nature or maybe I just love gossip but I get kick out of reading the details of these seemingly larger-than-life celebrities.

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell
What I thought: Yum, and yuck.
After hearing about this book several different places I finally remembered to put a hold on it at the library. I sped through it in several days because of the easy writing style and episodic chapters that allowed me to pick it back up without having to reread several pages. I fell in love with Julie and her huge task of making all 524 receipes from Julia Child's most famous cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. Julie orginally wrote a blog about her journey but instead of printing out the blog and binding it, the editor allowed Julie to talk more about her family, friends and crazy job while quoting from certain blog passages. I admit to being more than a little sick when reading about extracting marrow from a bone or eating brains but cheered along with her after her sucessful boning of a duck. I highly recommend it for two reasons. It made me want to cook and I want to know more about Julie.

Julia Child by Laurie Shapiro
What I thought: I had no idea!
I actually read this a while ago at the begining of my chef biography period. Julia Child facinates me because she was so larger than life. This woman, in the 1940's, was a spy during WWII, married late in life to her soulmate Paul, was one of the first women to study at the famous Cordon Bleu in Paris and created a cooking empire. Laurie abviously cares about her subject but doesn't shy away from the bad sides of Julia's personality. This is a great way to learn more about an amazing woman.

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