OP: Cooking with Josephine

Strawberry Hill Press, 1977. Paperback. Very Good. Signed second printing.

Among the extraordinary array of figures who have appeared in kitchens over the years to feed their clients, win the hearts of their students, and inspire their colleagues, one of the most memorable was a brilliant, eccentric, magnetic woman named Josephine Araldo (1897–1989). 

Born in rural Brittany, she gardened from childhood and learned to use what she grew to make food that “tasted like itself.” Deciding on her vocation while still in her teens, she went to Paris where she studied at the Cordon Bleu with, among others, the great Henri-Paul Pellaprat. 

She worked briefly for luminaries in the French government, but in 1924 she was asked by a wealthy American entrepreneur to come work for his family in San Francisco. That she did, and although she remained in California, she made many return trips to France to seek additional training. In time, she was fully engaged in teaching both amateurs and professionals, and her West Coast reputation and devoted following grew.

Although formally trained, her kitchen work was far from orthodox. Brilliantly instinctive, she knew when to follow the rules and when to take off and fly. Many fine cooks, ranging from Alice Waters to Marion Cunningham, came to see her and to absorb what they could from both her technique and her keen sense of what worked. 

We offer here her first book, Cooking with Josephine (1977). Presenting traditional French home food, the recipes are threaded through with anecdotes, biographical detail, and lots of informal advice.

Issued only as a high quality paperback, ours is a Very Good second printing. Making this copy especially uncommon is that it is signed and inscribed to a previous owner by Josephine herself.