Giveaway: “The Tenth Muse” by Legendary Cookbook Editor Judith Jones
In 2008 I met Judith Jones, the brilliant editor who rescued “Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl,” and Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” and made them into best-sellers.
I’m giving away a copy of Jones’ autobiography, “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food,” (Anchor Books, $14.95 paperback) which includes 50 of her favorite recipes. To enter, just leave a comment at the end of this blog post. I’ll be drawing a winner on July 17.
Jones book tells how in 1948, the young assistant editor for Doubleday in Paris rescued “The Diary of Anne Frank” from the rejection pile and convinced her bosses to publish it in America. She was drawn to the picture of the young Jewish girl, and the story of how she lived in hiding with her family during World War II.
The book, published in English by Doubleday in 1952, gave a human face to the Holocaust. It became a best-seller and was made into a Pulitzer Prize-winning play and a movie.
So Jones already had a track record for picking winners by the time Julia Child’s French cookbook landed her desk at Alfred A. Knopf in 1959. The book had already been rejected by many other publishing houses.
But the book was a godsend to Jones, who missed good French cooking that she enjoyed while living in Paris. She took it home and tried many of the dishes. When Knopf heard she was going to call it “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” he said if the book sold, he would eat his hat.
“Think of how many hats he had to eat,” Jones concluded.
The book also tells of working with other cookbook authors such as James Beard, Marcella Hazan, Lidia Bastianich, Madher Jaffrey, Edna Lewis, Claudia Roden and Marion Cunningham. She was also the longtime editor of literary authors such as John Updike, Anne Tyler, John Hersey, Elizabeth Bowen, Peter Taylor and William Maxwell.
I enjoyed reading Jones’ memoirs, “The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food,” (Anchor Books, $14.95 paperback) with its vivid descriptions, lively sense of humor and 50 of her favorite recipes.
As an editor, Jones didn’t merely correct grammar and insert commas. She tested many of the recipes herself. She and Child spent hours cooking the recipes together in Child’s Cambridge, Mass., kitchen, and then went over every detail to make sure it was clearly explained.
Jones’ book mainly dishes up food instead of celebrity dirt. But she did write of Child throwing a tantrum over a condescending letter from her French co-author, Simone Beck. Julia threw the letter on the floor and stamped on it, crying, “I will not be treated like a dog tray anymore!”
The recipes include a lot of French influences, such as Celeri Remoulade, Sweetbreads Sauteed with Morels and Cream, Frenchified Meatloaf, and Sorrel Soup. She also has lots of recipes for one, since she spent about 20 years cooking on her own after her husband passed away.
To enter the prize drawing, leave a comment at the end of this blog post. Tell me, who are some of your favorite cookbook authors? I’ll be drawing a winner on July 17.