The Kitchen Reader - My Life in France by Julia Child

The Kitchen Reader book for October is My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Alex worked with Julia in the last year of her life to put together this book from her memories and from old letters that the Childs and their friends and relatives had sent over the years. The idea for the book had first been floated by Paul Child, Julia's husband, in 1969, but it was not until shortly before Julia's death in 2004 that the idea came to fruition. It was a close call, as Alex had to finish the book after Julia's death.


My Life in France documents the lives of Paul and Julia Childs, not only during their time in France, but also during Paul's diplomatic transfers to Norway and back to America before his retirement. Through its pages, we learn how Paul and Julia came to be in France, and how Julia came, first to cooking and earning a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu, then to writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking (MtAoFC) and her subsequent TV career. I learned for the first time that Julia co-authored MtAoFC with two French women, Simone Beck (known as Simca) and Louisette Bertholle, and that the project to write a book on French cookery for American women was actually started by Simone and Louisette. It was not until their original publisher rejected their efforts and suggested that they find an American collaborator to help them that Julia's involvement with MtAoFC commenced. None of Julia's achievements came without considerable downs and lots of hard work. Perhaps the most striking aspects of Julia's personality which shine through in My Life in France are Julia's determination and committed work ethos. Without them, MtAoFC would never have been published.


The pages of My Life in France are littered with colourful characters, including the larger than life Julia and her sister, Dort, through to their cantankerous father, John McWilliams, the Childs' French maids, Coo-Coo and Jeanne-la-folle ("crazy Jeanne"), Chef Bugnard, Julia's teacher at Le Cordon Bleu, Julia's devoted friend Avis De Voto (who is integral in MtAoFC finally being published), Judith Jones, the editor who made MtAoFC happen, and last but certainly not least, Paul Child, the love of Julia's life. The relationship between Paul and Julia is remarkable, and I would consider myself extremely blessed if I find a soulmate who makes me feel like Paul made Julia feel.


Paul and Julia dubbed their apartment in Paris "Roo de Loo" (as it was located at 81 Rue de l'Universite), and it is here that much of the action in the book takes place. Although Paul and Julia are forced to leave Paris after 4 years for Marseilles due to Paul's work commitments, their hearts remain in Paris. While in Paris, Julia met Simca and Louisette, and together they started a cooking school called L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes ("The School of the Three Hearty Eaters") before their book collaboration began. When Julia collaborated with Simca and Louisette on what was to become MtAoFC, there were so many hurdles to the book's publication that I am sure that Julia often had reason to recall one of Paul's favourite phrases, Illegitemus non carborundum est ("Don't let the bastards grind you down").


Julia's successful TV career began in 1962 after she returned to the US as a means of promoting MtAoFC, at a time when she had never even watched television. It was a baptism of fire, as the original three shows were filmed without interruption, and as Julia herself said, she was a complete amateur. However, those first three shows were popular enough for her show, The French Chef, to become a regular television program.


Child residences which feature prominently with Roo de Loo include their Provence getaway situated near the Becks called La Pitchoune (meaning "The Little Thing" and dubbed "La Peetch" for short), and their final home at 103 Irving Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which Avis spotted for them, and from whence Julia's famous kitchen was relocated to the Smithsonian Institute.


The book's conclusion is rather poignant, as Julia's relatives and friends begin "to slip off into the wide blue yonder". However, a life as rich as Julia's gives reason to celebrate rather than to mourn. We are incredibly lucky that, thanks to Paul Child's original idea, Julia's dedication to that idea and Alex Prud'homme's ability to bring it to fruition, we are able to share some of the details of Julia's life, and be inspired ourselves.


My Life in France has a wonderful tale to tell, which is interesting and inspiring regardless of whether or not you have an interest in food or have seen Julia's shows or own MtAoFC. It gives readers an inside look at an extraordinary life and at a number of pivotal historical eras in modern European and American history.

Virtual Night In - Rose Biscuits

Silver Moon Dragon of Dragon Musings is hosting a Virtual Night In for Pink October, which promotes breast cancer awareness. The deadline for entries was last night - I somehow thought it was 31 October, so this post is late, but I figure it is still 27 October elsewhere in the world. You can donate to this worthy cause by sponsoring Silver Moon Dragon's blog party here.

For my contribution, I have brought rose flavoured biscuits in the shape of pink girly shoes and dresses along. The biscuits are flavoured with crushed dried rose petals, and they are iced with pink icing flavoured with rose water. The recipe that I used is the same one that I used for the baby shower biscuits, but with the lavender substituted with rose.

You have until midnight on 27 October to contribute your entry, or you can help out by making a donation to this worthy cause.

A roundup of all blog party entries will be published at Dragon Musings later in the week.

Pumpkin apple spice bread

Are your teeth aching after yesterday's Daring Bakers and TWD posts? Feeling the need for some powerful antacids? That's OK, this post tones it all down and goes back to a much less sweet, much more weight-friendly recipe in the form of a Pumpkin Apple Spice Bread, courtesy of Jill at Strawberry Spice.


Because it is autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and with pumpkin-friendly Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up, there are loads of amazing pumpkin recipes popping up all over the blogosphere at the moment. As a child, I loathed pumpkin, and I only tried it again because I lived at a University residential college for 5 years, where it was eat your veges or starve! Pumpkin was one of the only pleasant surprises that we were served, and I am now a confirmed pumpkin fan.


This pumpkin apple spice bread (a cake, really) is not only delicious, but it is low in fat. It is also very forgiving, because in my absent-mindedness, I only added two egg whites instead of four, and it held together just fine.


To make this wonderful cake, you can find the recipe here. Apart from the accidental reduction in egg whites, my other tinkering consisted of using some stewed apple I had in the freezer instead of fresh apple, and replacing the raisins with currants and the pecans with cashews, for no other reason than that is what I had lying around.





This cake is delicious both warm and at room temperature. What else can I say - if you like pumpkin, make this cake!

TWD - Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte

This week's Tuesday with Dorie challenge is a rich, decadent, Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte, chosen by April of Short + Rose.

You can easily guess what this dessert cake is all about from its title; however, I will confirm that it consists of a rich, dense, chocolatey (>300g worth!) base dotted with dried cherries soaked in cherry booze and made sticky with (in my case) raspberry jam, then topped with a contrasting mousse of marscapone, cream cheese and cream. Oh, and in case you can't work it out (according to this article, the Australian public needs to be told such things), it is highly calorific.

This torte tastes as devine as only that many calories can; however, you really only need a tiny slice of this to be satisfied, so when you spread the calories over the number of pieces of cake (I sliced at least 20 slices), it is not going to hurt once in a while as your treat of the day. And it does taste good - I could easily settle for the brownie layer less the cherry concoction and the mousse. It's not up there with my favourite desserts, but it is good.

You are supposed to flame your plumped up dried cherries with kirsch. I didn't have kirsch, but I have been harbouring a bottle of Danish Kirsberry for about two years after I decided I needed it during a raid on Dan Murphy's bottleshop in Prahran. (Yep, it's a well travelled bottle of Kirsberry - from Denmark to Melbourne to Brisbane.)

I also had a hard time finding the dried cherries. I remember that not so long ago I could buy them in the supermarket in Melbourne. Whether it's the change in geography which means that dried cherries just don't sell, or whether you never could buy them in Brisbane supermarkets, I could not find dried cherries in any of the 4 supermarkets that I canvassed. They weren't at the Powerhouse farmers market or New Farm Deli either (well, not without a chocolate coating). I found the Rolls Royce American version at Black Pearl for $17 per 200g (ouch!), before striking gold at The Nut Market at James Street Markets (at $5.95 per 100g, still not cheap, but affordable).

Here is the cherry-chocolate brownie base, which is definitely sturdy:



Mine puffed up and cracked slightly on top during baking, but settled down on cooling.

If that is not decadent enough, you top the base with a marscapone based mousse:


Marscapone is sold in supermarkets in 250g tubs, so I scaled down the mousse recipe in proportion to 1 tub of marscapone, and this provided a nice, thick topping.


If you would like to check out how the other TWD bakers went with this torte check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll. For the recipe, check out Dorie's book or refer to April's blog (when it is Tuesday in the Northern Hemisphere).

Daring Bakers - Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

My macarons are peach flavoured and filled with raspberry ganache. The nacarons behaved quite well, and had domes and feet, so I was pleased with them, even if they were not as aesthetically perfect as the macarons I made in July with a different recipe.

I had the benefit of reading the DB forums for the first half of the month before making these, and to flavour my macarons, I used peach tea, as suggested by Audax. The tea gave the macarons a pronounced peach flavour, and made flecks through the surface of the macaron for appearance and texture. However, even after 4 drops of liquid orange colouring, my macarons are not very peach-coloured - oh well.

Notice the feet!

It was the ganache, not the macarons themselves, which let me down. I tried a recipe for the ganache that says to add a third of a cup of raspberry jam to the cream and white chocolate for flavour. That is where disaster set in, and I ended up with a sticky, runny mess that never set up. However, chocolate is an expensive commodity, and I wasn't prepared to pour it into the bin and start again when really the point of the exercise for me was the macaron base, not the filling.

Despite the runny, hopeless filling, these macarons tasted delicious, and it hasn't put me off making macarons again should I have a yen to do so. However, it was nonetheless disappointing that the filling spoiled the appearance of the macarons.

Here's a shot of inside the macaron - it had a lovely chewy texture inside:

You can see a rainbow display of macarons of all varieties by going to The Daring Bakers blogroll. And for some cute as a button but no cal macarons, see Sian Keagan's wool macarons at Lushlee.

Slow Roasted Lamb & Chicken and Borlotti Bean Stew

Happy Friday everyone! It's a good one for me because for the first weekend in ages, I don't have anywhere that I have to be or anything that I have to do. I am looking forward to spending my time tracking down some TWD ingredients which are exotic for Brisbane and to going to a Craft Fair to hopefully pick up some craft bargains (for all that craft that I do in my non-existent spare time, he, he).

To mix things up a bit, I am going to share a couple of main meals that I made recently - my true love is baked goods, but I enjoy cooking a good meal as well.

At the top of this post, I have featured in its uncooked state a leg of lamb that has been marinaded in accordance with Clotilde's recipe for Slow Roasted Shoulder of Lamb rubbed with Rosemary, Anchovy and Lemon Zest. Lamb shoulder is not within the province of my supermarket, so I made do with a leg of lamb. The little seeds you can see are mustard seeds, which I had a hard time buying - I went to three supermarkets before I found some.

I made this lamb when I had some friends over for dinner a little while ago. I have to tell you, this lamb tastes magnificent!!! My lamb marinated for a couple of days, and the flavour in the finished product (which I neglected to photograph) was devine. I served it with beans and jewelled couscous, and it was a hit. I don't like my lamb pink inside (it's an Australian thing), so I pumped up the heat for the last hour or so to ensure that the meat was lightly browned all the way through. Some of you may shudder at this, but I can assure you that it did not take away from the flavour in any way, and my guests seemed appreciative.



The next meal that I will share with you is Chicken and Borlotti Bean Stew. The recipe came under a slightly different name from p140 of the November edition of Australian Good Food. Now I know that you don't want me to bang on about calories, fat etc, as this is after all primarily a baking blog, but this meal is low in both, but still tastes good. The only change that I would have made is to season it with salt and pepper (the recipe is trying to be uber-healthy and doesn't talk about seasoning), but it is both hearty and delicious - a keeper for me.

To make this stew, you will need:

1 tablespoon olive oil
600g halved chicken thigh fillets
1 chopped onion
2 garlic cloves
2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
400g can borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
400g can crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon sage
2 sprigs thyme (I used rosemary 'cause that's what I had)
400g halved baby potatoes

Heat the oil in a wok or deep fry pan, then brown the chicken in batches and set aside.

Cook the onion in the same pan until soft and translucent, then add the garlic and cook until it too is soft. Add the stock, beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, sage and thyme, and bring the stwe to the boil. Add the chicken and potatoes to the pan, reduce te heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft. Serve with salad greens.

Have a great weekend!

TWD - Sweet Potato Biscuits

I am a native Queenslander. During most of my formative years, the Premier of Queensland was Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, a former Kiwi and a peanut farmer from Kingaroy. Joh was a character in his own right, and I will leave it up to history to decide on whether that was good or bad. Sir Joh's wife, Lady Flo, was famous in her own right, not just for being the Premier's wife or a State senator, but for her pumpkin scones. That's right folks - if you visited the Darling Down in the 70's and 80's, a popular souvenir was a tea towel with Lady Flo's pumpkin scone recipe printed on it. In the Internet age, you no longer need to buy a tea towel to get Lady Flo's pumpkin scone recipe - you can get it online here.


This brings me to this week's Tuesday with Dorie challenge, hosted by Prudy of Prudence Pennywise, which is Sweet Potato Biscuits. When I first saw this recipe name, I was imagining sweet potato cookies, because in Australia, as in the UK and New Zealand, a biscuit is the word for a cookie. However, on reading the recipe, I soon realised that this recipe was for biscuits in the North American sense of the term - a savoury scone.


These biscuits were delicious!!! I am a pumpkin scone fan, and these biscuits were just like a sweet potato version of a scone. They also looked like sunshine with their deep orange colour.


The biscuits were terrific served warm and slathered with butter (or in my case, reduced fat margarine, because my jeans are telling me very unhappy things about my expanding backside). I would happily make this recipe again and again, and it made a pleasant change from the very sweet and rich treats that have frequented our agenda.

If you would like the recipe for these sweet potato biscuits, please visit Prudy's site, or buy the book. To see what the other TWD members thought of these biscuits, see the TWD blogroll.