Appetite for Life

Nadia May's lively reading brings the world of Julia Child--"the French Chef"--to life. From Child's upper-class upbringing in California through her years of government service to her fame as America's first and foremost TV chef, May brings color and enthusiasm to the world of cooking. May's English accent and impeccable French give her the basic tools needed to capture Julia's personality and love of food, but her ardor for her subject carries her far beyond that. May transforms the seemingly endless details of menus and who's who lists of the cooking world into engrossing food for thought. Her zest for her subject, as well as her subject's engaging life, keeps the listener engrossed and satisfied as she artfully mimics Julia's high, shrill voice and maintains an even pace throughout. H.L.S. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 1, 1997
Julia McWilliams was always adventurously hunting for food to fill her 6'2" frame. When, in her late 20s, the Smith College-educated Californian took a wartime job with the OSS that sent her to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and China, she began cultivating a taste for authentic eatables as an alternative to service fare. Almost resigned to spinsterhood, she met and married Cambridge, Mass.-born government official Paul Child, who was on Asian duty, and accompanied him to his USIA posts in France and Germany. A gastronomical epiphany that occurred in Rouen, at the bistro where the couple once lunched, led her to attend the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris--and the rest is history. In 1961, Child published the three-pound bestseller Mastering the Art of French Cooking when she was 49, and a few years later she was a TV superstar conducting gustatory symphonies with whisks and pans and patter. Her life is told warmly and compellingly by Fitch, author of several books on literary and culinary Paris, who nicely captures Child's exuberant mannerisms and plummy voice that fans know so well. Her graphic diary-letters, extracted at length by Fitch, register the couple's experiences together and the emotions they shared. Now in her mid-80s, Child lives in a retirement village in Santa Barbara, Calif.