The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food
by: Judith Jones
Published by: Anchor Books/Random House
Buy From Amazon.com
Reviewed by Carrie Padgett
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food belongs on your shelf with Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun and Bill Buford’s Heat. It will awaken your senses and make you long for a crusty bread, an artisan cheese and a fresh peach.
Author Judith Jones is a longtime editor at publisher Alfred A. Knopf Inc. and a lifetime epicurean. It would be a mistake to dismiss Jones as “just a cookbook editor,” even though her authors include Julia Child, Marion Cunningham, and Lidia Bastianich. She’s responsible for publishing The Diary of Anne Frank, and she edited the work of Anne Tyler and John Updike, among others.
It’s apparent that her two loves, great literature and food, converged in a special way when she worked with Child and the other chefs. Jones gives her readers a glimpse into how she brings a cookbook to life as well as how she coaches a cook into a writer. Giving each chef a unique culinary viewpoint with the food and a unique voice as a writer was Jones’ primary focus.
Starting with a childhood of bland English and New England fare, Jones recounts how she was born wanting more. More flavor, more variety, more goodness. After college and WWII she lived in Paris for several years where she met her late husband Evan Jones. Together they explored the food of different cultures and brought the best of it home to New York, then Vermont. They also excelled at finding the best local food available.
Personal details are sparse. Readers craving gossip about why she and Evan never had children or whether their relationship played a part in his divorce will be disappointed. But foodies who want to know if she really ate beaver liver and tail will get their answer.
Jones concludes the book with recipes from childhood, later discoveries including French and Asian favorites, and her newest passion: cooking for one. Pictures of Jones, her husband, and many of her authors are sprinkled throughout.
The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food is part memoir, part travelogue, part cookbook and is easily more than the sum of its parts.
Armchair Interviews agrees.
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