Book excerpt: This enchanting follow-up to My Life in France—the beloved bestselling memoir—chronicles Julia Child’s rise from home cook to the first celebrity chef. “Inspiring and engaging ... It’s impossible not to love Julia Child.” —The Wall Street Journal The story of a remarkable woman who found her true voice in middle age and profoundly shaped our relationship with food, The French Chef in America is a fascinating look at the second act of a unique culinary icon. While at the beginning of her career Julia’s name was synonymous with French cooking, she fashioned a new identity in the 1970s, reinventing and Americanizing herself. Here we see her dealing with difficult colleagues and the challenges of fame, and ultimately using her newfound celebrity to create what would become a totally new type of food television.