Julia Child arrived in France at the end of World War II, a 37-year-old new bride who could barely boil water. In my My Life in France, 91-year-old Julia tells the reader, in that unmistakable friendly, booming voice how she became the American Grande Dame of French cuisine.

This is an engrossing book full of high drama, eccentric characters, breathtaking scenery, and meals so lovingly described the reader's mouth will water. But most interesting of all is Julia, a fearless, curious American women who fell in love with French food at her first meal in Rouen.

Resolved to learn how to cook properly for her husband, Paul, she enrolled in the Cordon Bleu, the famous Paris cooking school. And the rest is history. Or, not quite. The road to success was not so easy; Julia failed her Cordon Bleu final exam the first time she took it. She and some friends wrote the definite French cookbook for the American market, eventually published as Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but the laborious project took over eight years.

My Life in France is about attitude: toward life, toward society, toward food. For Julia, these aspects were all linked. To join a society where cookery was respected as an art form was a revelation for her, yet it also felt natural. She professed a sense of coming home to a country she had never visited before, wondering, “Am I French, somehow?”

Her love of France and its culture was beautifully intertwined with her devotion to her husband, Paul. A career diplomat as well as a gifted artist, photographer, and gourmand, his overseas postings took the couple to Paris, Marseillaise, Germany, and Scandinavia. Their life together was a shared adventure, a true love story. My Life is France is illustrated with a number of wonderful photographs by Paul Child, as well as an assortment of the yearly Valentine's cards they designed together and sent to their friends and relatives.

While we think of French cooking as rich and fatting, the French attitude, which Julia taught us so passionately, will guide us toward healthy eating – slow down, taste real food, and share the pleasure.

A soon-to-be-released motion picture, Julie & Julia, is the story of Julia Child's years in France as well as the trials and tribulations of blogger Julie Powell as she cooks (and writes) her way through Julia's classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. My Life in France provides the biographical material for the Julia portions of the film.