Weekend Book Giveaway: Judith Jones's 'The Tenth Muse'
Here's a partial list of the writers our Weekend Book Giveaway author Judith Jones has edited:
- Julia Child
- Edna Lewis
- John Updike
- Marcella Hazan
- James Beard
- Joan Nathan
- Marion Cunningham
- Claudia Roden
- Anne Tyler
So it is an obvious cause for celebration when someone as distinguished as Jones writes her culinary memoir, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food. She's 83 years old and doesn't appear to be slowing down, according to a recent profile in the New York Times:
Ms. Jones says she makes dinner for herself almost every night (with candles and wine, yet), sharpens her own knives, tests recipes from current authors like Lidia Bastianich (adapting them, even casseroles, to serve one), and lobs frequent complaints to her local purveyors.
Formidable and feisty, don't you think?
We have five copies to give away. Just tell us who's your favorite Judith Jones author from the list above. You must comment by noon ET on Monday, October 29, to be eligible to win. The usual Serious Eats contest rules apply.
Comments are closed: 66 Comments:
Julia, of course!
wisekaren at 8:35AM on 10/27/07
I second that - Julia!
JeffsInTheKitchen at 8:51AM on 10/27/07
Not to be too glaringly original, but -- Julia.
lisapeet at 9:13AM on 10/27/07
Julia Child taught me to cook - literally. My mother, a non-cook, used to watch Julia on PBS because she thought she was funny. That's why I started watching, too. Then she lured me in and taught me via black and white TV to care about food. Edna Lewis would be a close second. She was a very gentle soul.
QScoop at 9:26AM on 10/27/07
Julia, but Marcella is a very, very close second.
Dee at 9:31AM on 10/27/07
It's a tough choice, but I'm going with Julia.
deborahs at 9:38AM on 10/27/07
Julia Child, hands-down.
Holly at 9:41AM on 10/27/07
Another vote here for Julia
zekks at 10:02AM on 10/27/07
Marcella Hazan for me all the way, although I respect everyone of these authors tremendously!
tigers at 10:07AM on 10/27/07
Claudia Roden
PattiA at 10:08AM on 10/27/07
Wow, what a great list. While Marion Cunningham helped get me started in the kitchen, Marcella Hazan is more in line with how I cook every day. Plus, Marcella's baked crespelle recipe is one of my enduring favorites! My nod goes to Marcella.
DuncanHusky at 10:31AM on 10/27/07
Impossible. The question can not be answered.
I'm accustomed to reading things written in list form as recipes - or rather the ingredients that go together to make a recipe. So that's what I saw when reading that list and ohmigod! What a recipe.
Julia Child - large, strong, boisterous, smart as dickens with whatever magic it was that allowed a middle-aged woman to enter into teaching our country how to cook, and through the medium of television mostly, at that!
Edna Lewis, whose life spoke of the struggles of many, struggles that are softly forgotten by children in elementary schools who do not know who "JFK" was - Edna who brought recipes that sung with wonders of flavor and depths of a cultural history - another woman who made her way through the world leading with a spoonful of the delicious.
John Updike can not be removed from this recipe because the characters he's brought to life are alive in so many minds. I can imagine Henry Bech sitting down to dinner with Julia or Edna, and the conversations that might occur.
Marcella Hazan. Where would a recipe be without Marcella? Lacking one's own personal Italian mother or aunt who will with painstaking love describe how to cook things right in Italian, which is rather a song of sorts - things would fall flat without Marcella.
James Beard is a firmament. If it were a real recipe, he would have to be our sauteed onions and garlic to start the sauce. Nothing can happen without James.
Joan Nathan is the savor and enrichment. She widens the taste of the recipe while reminding us that it still is our recipe, that we are many people with deep and rich flavors to combine.
Marion Cunningham is our champion of Home (and god or the goddess knows we need her!) and the ways in which good food can help create that mythic wonderful thing. Her warm hand has reached out to hold many a hand dubious about how to enter a kitchen to feed a family or themselves.
Claudia Roden adds a sprinkling of fairy dust to the recipe - with more stories, more deep enriching flavors, and a gaze out beyond where we can literally see.
Anne Tyler has told us so many things through her stories. Things we might know but didn't think of just in the same way or with the same understanding after reading her. She is a vital part of this recipe for one needs conversation and things to think of that feed the mind and soul at any good dinner, and it would not do to take this part from the recipe.
Utterly awesome, this list. The recipe is complete, with Judith stirring the pot, adjusting the flavors, sparking the undertones brighter just a tad as the best editors will do - but one more thing needs to be added. Evan Jones must be in this recipe too, entertaining and educating to boot.
Yes, I've used a lot of space here to write all this. I had to. The ingredients taken separately are fabulous but the recipe put together is just too good to tweak.
Karen Resta at 10:41AM on 10/27/07
My money is on Edna Lewis (hey, I'm a Southern girl). But I do love Julia Child...
sarahbeam at 10:45AM on 10/27/07
Gotta be James Beard.
michichan at 11:07AM on 10/27/07
Gonna have to go with Marcella Hazan at the moment.
edwelker at 11:11AM on 10/27/07
They are all wonderful of course (Karen says it all) but I refer to Marcella the most for simple, everyday cooking.
izzy's mama at 11:38AM on 10/27/07
julia child
alicebc at 11:47AM on 10/27/07
My choice is Julia Child.
mscherryclafouti at 11:50AM on 10/27/07
even though this is a cooking blog, i have to be honest and say John Updike.
ceforrester at 12:00PM on 10/27/07
john updike!
pupilindenial at 12:24PM on 10/27/07
I'm going to break the mold and say I really like Anne Tyler even if she's not a cookbook author.
ebarrett at 12:43PM on 10/27/07
marion cunnigham....she raised joanie and ritchie so well and they always looked well fed... especially her hubby!
Kenzo at 12:43PM on 10/27/07
It looks Julia Child is going to be the hands down favorite and she is mine also. So much credit goes to Judith for believing in her and convincing the big guys at her publishing house to go with Julia's first book. I'm also going to have have to mention James Beard as my sentimental favorite.
linda at 12:45PM on 10/27/07
Julia!!!
salty at 12:55PM on 10/27/07
Julia Child, because she came at a time when women were buying the "I Hate To Cook Book" and felt not cooking well was a badge of honor. Thank goodness Julia showed us all you could be smart and funny and still cook. I became devoted to her in graduate school, when our apartment in NYC often had no heat or hot water, but I served quiches, souffles, braised beef, and mushrooms a la grecque to fellow Columbia students and garnered no small degree of dignity for all that. A Ph.D. has never given me the distinction my cooking skills have given me---all thanks to Julia Child, whose cookbooks now have no backs and many stains. So I received two degrees in graduate school--the one that sounds impressive, and the one from Julia that made the real impression on friends and family. Could I call that my Julia.D?
Teachertalk at 1:33PM on 10/27/07
It's got to be Julia!
hobnob at 1:34PM on 10/27/07
Gonna go with Julia Child.....but that is one mighty formidable list!
bobcatsteph3 at 2:35PM on 10/27/07
Anne Tyler.
mhgatti at 2:49PM on 10/27/07
Marcella Hazan
bluebird at 2:56PM on 10/27/07
I'm an Updike girl.
SelimaCat at 3:30PM on 10/27/07
Julia Child, definitely! Julia is who made Judith Jones famous.
Cindy at 3:40PM on 10/27/07
Marcella Hazan
Don Luis at 3:54PM on 10/27/07
Have to say John Updike. Glad I'm not the only one, thought =).
kfarrel3 at 4:46PM on 10/27/07
James Beard
spanklin at 5:29PM on 10/27/07
I love Julia, but I like Marcella's writing more.
madball911 at 5:51PM on 10/27/07
Mmmm..Julia!
happybites at 6:32PM on 10/27/07
Anne Tyler... gotta go with the truth! Julia Child is great but I dont own any of her books.
MeganThomas at 8:54PM on 10/27/07
Marcella, Julia, Joan all fabulous home bakers. Ooooh I am so in awe someone pinch me.
JerzeeTomato at 10:26PM on 10/27/07
Edna Lewis would do it for me. She opened up a world of food and traditions that this "Northern Gal" had never experienced. Many thanks, Miss Edna!
gregsmom at 12:04AM on 10/28/07
Julia ,no contest!
peticook at 12:28AM on 10/28/07
I have read James Beard, Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, and Edna Lewis over and over and over. I've cooked a lot from their books. I think that Julia changed the way this country lived, cooked and ate (and many others have built on that foundation). I read The Taste of Country Cooking at least once a year for most of the last 30, because it is so emotionally satisfying. James Beard revealed that there were wonderful, to-be-cherished foods on the West Coast. And Marcella demonstrated the overwhelming importance of perfection and simplicity. I can't choose. I think that Judith Jones is a hero for shepherding them to publication.
islandexile at 12:42AM on 10/28/07
Marion Cunningham, hands down.
The first real cookbook I ever owned was Fannie Farmer. I've collected and used many others since then, but she's a standard and I'll never let her go!
thehungryrose at 3:34AM on 10/28/07
Growing up, it was Julia Child who first intrroduced me to the world of food....she opened my eyes to a completely different way of looking at food...
Teri at 6:36AM on 10/28/07
It all starts with James Beard with Julia not far behind .
NewEnglandBites at 7:39AM on 10/28/07
Julia, of course. Her humour and coolness is hard to compare to!
savvy savorer at 8:05AM on 10/28/07
Julia Child is one of my cooking idols, but my literature preference runs to John Updike. Even though it seems that I cannot think of a single Updike character that likes to cook (although some of them do take great pleasure in food, among other pleasures of the flesh).
Mizbee at 10:43AM on 10/28/07
Anne Tyler, Ladder of Years , is my favorite book; re-read it every summer at the Jersey shore. She is a genius. THe characters, the plot, the descriptions, unparallelled.
bethg at 11:04AM on 10/28/07
Marion Cunningham! Her recipes are straightforward, humorous, and always accurate and useful. She's great. (Although Anne Tyler is pretty amazing too.)
Christina at 11:14AM on 10/28/07
EDNA LEWIS. The Taste of Country Cooking.
whole list, really.
but Edna Lewis first.
cheryls at 11:28AM on 10/28/07
Claudia Roden's most recent book makes me swoon - she's fabulous.
Peasantwench at 1:07PM on 10/28/07
Claudia Roden =)
kimlian at 1:27PM on 10/28/07
I love Julia for her spirit, but "Beard on Bread" is such a great bread baking cookbook that I think I have to go with James Beard.
lola27 at 3:02PM on 10/28/07
I
beano at 6:31PM on 10/28/07
julia julia julia!
tortor at 8:02PM on 10/28/07
Julia; and Marion is a close second.
ride&cook at 8:47PM on 10/28/07
How could I not choose Julia
lliang at 10:05PM on 10/28/07
Marcela Hazan is my favorite..and I am sure...Hers!!
margot at 10:17PM on 10/28/07
John Updike.
PattyCho at 10:41PM on 10/28/07
Julia Child
ConschBTJ at 9:04AM on 10/29/07
Marcella Hazan
mrsbao at 9:31AM on 10/29/07
Marion Cunningham!
MerMade07 at 9:36AM on 10/29/07
While I'm also an admitted Julia Child fan I have to say Marcella Hazan. She started my love affair with Italian cooking - so much so that I even went on a cooking school trip to Italy. It turns out that the chef who taught us had even worked with her on a few projects so I almost felt like a learned a little from her as well during that trip. You know you can always go back to her recipes and they will never fail you!
amyi at 9:57AM on 10/29/07
Julia Child
EmilySC at 10:28AM on 10/29/07
James Beard.
sjwoodin at 10:31AM on 10/29/07
Julia Child, for a whole host of reasons, clearly I think the collaboration between Judith and Julia took cookbooks to new heights.
swillats at 12:08PM on 10/29/07
Thanks to everyone for commenting and congrats to our winners:
Cindy
NewEnglandBites
wisekaren
Karen Resta
sjwoodin
roboppy at 6:32PM on 10/29/07