I finished reading Julia Child's memoir, My Life in France, last night. She certainly captured the adventure of discovery and change that she went through, moving forward to becoming "Julia Child," along with some of the bittersweet effects of leaving other parts of her life behind.
While she doesn't exactly say so, it's clear that simple male chauvanism was behind Mastering the Art of French Cooking being rejected by so many publishing houses before it landed at Knopf. The men in charge kept insisting that housewives weren't interested in complicated recipes, that they only wanted mixes to simplify their lives, and that was all they should want. It was the women in publishing who championed the book. Thank heaven for women, in this case!
