Pamela Heyne

I received a free early-reviewer copy of this book.

I throughly enjoyed most of In Julia's Kitchen. It was very interesting reading about Julia's take on kitchen design and how her kitchens (home and studio) may have influenced our kitchens over the years. The photographs were fantastic and useful to understand how Julia organized and used her kitchen. It makes me want to re-organize mine!

The second half of the book was still interesting, but not necessarily Julia related. The author went off on a few tangents about how modern kitchens may be influencing the weight and eating habits of Americans. She also included kitchens from a few other celebrity chefs who had known Julia and were inspired by her. Those made sense, but again, at the end of that section she turned to touting kitchens she had designed and name-dropping well-to-do home-owners she'd worked for that seemingly had nothing to do with Julia. Again, interesting to an extent, but it at times it felt as if Heyne was simply trying to add filler.

In spite of the faults above, I highly recommend this book for any Julia fan or those interested in kitchen design.… (mehr)

Thank you to LibraryThing and University Press of New England for providing a copy of In Julia's Kitchen. The paperback book itself is well-made and nicely designed-- with a thick glossy cover, heavy paper stock, and a clean layout. Unfortunately, the content does not live up to its presentation.

Fans of Julia Child will enjoy the voyeuristic look into her Cambridge home kitchen and the personal stories and photos that are shared in part one of the book. Disappointingly, there are no photos of her kitchen in France, nor any of the other places she lived. There is an outdoor picture from her one-time home of La Pitchoune, but the kitchen shot is from the current owners, who have turned the residence into a cooking school (which felt like an odd bit of advertising thrown into the midst).

The second half of the book is supposed to be the "practical and convivial kitchen design inspired by Julia Child" as the book's subtitle states but really fails to deliver here. While I commend the author's opinion that our modern kitchens may be contributing to weight gain and the "snack culture", she doesn't make a convincing enough argument and most importantly, fails to successfully show viable alternative kitchen designs or features to combat this problem. There is a woeful lack of floor plans and photos. In fact, part two felt very slapdash and haphazard in the choices of the kitchens that were featured. One such example is the studio kitchen of co-author and photographer Jim Scherer, which, while interesting, begs questions of relevance. How is his studio kitchen inspired by Julia Child? What in it is practical and convivial for home cooks? How does it address the author's concern for family mealtimes? There are, unfortunately, several more examples of this where readers will wonder why some kitchens (and owners) are even in here.

There are other books that feature Julia Child, some even written by her, that expound on her cooking philosophy and life. There are many more books on kitchen design that offer concrete suggestions, layouts, and copious photographs. Regrettably, In Julia's Kitchen does not stand up to what is already out there.… (mehr)

This book was all over the place.

Despite my criticisms, I’m such a big Julia Child fan that I’m glad to have this book. Most of the photographs are interesting, even if the overall subject treatment is uneven. I wouldn’t call it a kitchen design book.

The subtitle, Practical and Convivial Kitchen Design Inspired by Julia Child, is misleading. That sounds great, but if the reader is expecting a wealth of information that illustrates and explains what JC brought to the world of kitchen design that you could maybe use for your own home, don’t get your hopes up. It's more like a collection of photographs with personal agendas and random trivia thrown in.

I enjoyed the first section, an overview of JC’s Cambridge house kitchen (now in the Smithsonian). GOOD: Lots of photos, discussion of what the Childs did to personalize the kitchen. NOT GOOD: a partial (why? why not include the pantries?) plan of the kitchen, odd snippets of JC info (how she wasn’t worried about working with raw chicken in a carpeted area. Who cares?). Her Provence kitchen gets a separate chapter but contains only three images, and two of those are exterior shots. And I don’t understand why the TV show kitchens were included. How do the television kitchens communicate the point of the book?

Part two covers JC’s “Kitchen Legacy,” which apparently includes how people eat too much. Snacking culture and open kitchens are blamed. This felt out of place to me — although JC’s message of moderation is mentioned, she didn’t focus on obesity. She was pro-food! Pro-butter! Pro-trying-new-things! Pro-cooking! Instead of clearly backing up ways that JC contributed to kitchen design (part of the reason I think this book fails is that there isn’t much there), this part feels more like a rant about modern eating habits.

I was looking forward to the Simpatico Kitchens chapter — spaces that “are in sympathy with Julia’s ideas” — but found it disappointing. How were these kitchens chosen? Why do some have nine photographs and others none? Here’s the TV kitchen Jacques Pepin uses for his most recent shows, here’s his daughter’s home kitchen, and how about a bunch of places that only get a couple paragraphs of description? Oh look, here are some kitchens Heyne designed for clients, here's a bit about a former classmate's kitchen, here’s a description but you only get to see the view into the backyard, here’s a blurb about light and another about mirrors, and here is Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier! I skimmed a lot of this section because it was random and boring.

When it comes down to it, Julia Child was not a design person. Yes, she was for eating real food and eating together, but, even if that warranted a whole book, this book doesn't do that. Yes, she and her husband created a kitchen that worked for her, meaning higher countertops, pegboard pegboard pegboard, a commercial oven, and tons of storage. However, I think she would care far more about people ACTUALLY COOKING than the functionality of their workspace — she was not even interested in the working triangle that’s standard in many kitchens. I think she’s way more in Tim Gunn Land: Make it work!

I wish Heyne had instead written the book she describes in the introduction, “about practical kitchens of noted food writers and chefs.” I wish it had lots and lots of photographs, plans of every kitchen, and discussed design. (Fine Cooking magazine used to do a segment called Behind the Kitchen Door that did exactly that — look online if that’s the kind of thing you like, too.)… (mehr)