Dames Who Read – November 2024

Hosted at Private Home in Evanston, IL

We know Judith Jones as the editor who successfully shepherded Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking into the world, as well as all subsequent Julia books. While those made her a well-known name in the cooking world, she was behind the scenes and the success of hundreds of other books, not all of which were cookbooks.

This fascinating biography tells us who she was, but also the back story on how books get published – the many steps it takes, the egos that need pampering, the steel will Judith Jones exhibited in her long career. And it tells us a lot about the personalities of so many authors as diverse as Sylvia Plath, John Updike, Anne Frank, Anne Tyler and so many, many more.

To focus on the breadth of that list of cookbooks, attendees’ “homework”  for this Dames Who Read meeting will be to choose one of her books  (think beyond the Julia Child volumes) and pick a recipe to bring to our pot luck evening to share as we discuss a woman who was so important yet existed out of the limelight. (A partial list is below)

Middle Eastern Food – Claudia Rodin
Organic Gardening – Catherine Osgood Foster
Vegetarian Epicure – Anne Thomas
Invitation to Indian Cooking – Madhur Jaffrey
Key to Chinese Cooking – Irene Kuo
Simka’s Cusine – Simone Beck
Beard on Bread – James Beard
The Taste of Country Cooking – Edna Lewis
Among Friends – MFK Fisher
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook – (Revision)
L L Bean Game and Fish – Angus Cameron
Honey From a Weed – Patience Gray
A Year in Provence – Peter Maile
Biscuits, Spoonbread and Sweet Potato Pie – Bill Neal
Cooking with Rosie – Rosie Daley
A Spoonful of Ginger – Nina Simon
At Home with Japanese Cooking – Elizabeth Andoh
Lidia’s Family Table – Lidia Bastianich
Pleasures of the Good Earth – Ed Giobbi
Many by – Joan Nathan and Marcella Hazan