Newspaper Article

An Editing Life, a Book of Her Own

Moskin, Julia

2007

Overview

Ms. [Judith Jones] said that, with so many young Americans traveling abroad after World War II, changes in the way they ate at home were inevitable. But who can say how widespread the phenomenon would have been without her influence? Had it been up to ''those silly men at Houghton Mifflin,'' as she describes the publisher who rejected the manuscript of ''Mastering the Art of French Cooking'' as being ''formidable to the housewife,'' American cooks might still be chained to back-of-the-box recipes and canned vegetables. At this point, Ms. Jones cheerfully confesses, ''Mastering the Art'' has been through so many reprints and re-edits, and so much of the original material has been revised, that it is almost entirely [Julia Child]'s work. ''That's the advantage of sticking around so long,'' she said. ''You can keep sneaking changes in.'' ''Judith is fearless,'' said Anne Mendelson, who is working with Ms. Jones on a book on American dairy products. (Ms. Mendelson occasionally reviews books for The New York Times.) ''This began as a nice cookbook with recipes using sour cream, and it's now this beast all about the weird and destructive things that are happening to our milk supply. But she hasn't blinked.''

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: Autobiographies / Books-titles / Jones, Judith / Recipes / Tenth Muse: My Life in Food