My sister gave me this book for Christmas, and I absolutely loved it! I've always been a fan of Julia Child, and this book was just marvelous. Lively, entertaining--it wasn't so much a food memoir as simply a journey through France. This book made me really understand why Julia Child is such a unique cook--her driving need to have every recipe so perfected so that even a novice cook can achieve the desired result is something that I really resonated with. I loved reading about her endless experiments with bread or with mayonnaise to make sure that the recipe would give the right result every time. I was fascinated by the differences between French and American ingredients, tools, etc.

I'm not really capturing the essence, persay, so let me just say that this is a fascinating read about Julia Child and about France and about food, not just a sort of cookbook in novel form. Lovely!