Julie & Julia

About a week ago I saw the movie Julie & Julia. The movie is based on the true stories of Julia Child, the world renowned chef, and Julie Powell, a woman whose life was turned around when she created a blog with the challenge of completing all of the recipes in Child’s first cookbook in one year. The movie was fantastic and was well acted. I was inspired to write this blog after I watched the movie.

Today I was wondering if Julie Powell’s original Julie/Julia Project blog was still online. I typed in “Julie/Julia Project” into the search engine and found it. I was glad to see that much of the blog was like it was in the movie. The description under the blog title is “Nothing here but us servantless American cooks.” The description of the challenge is similarly similar. It was funny to see that she cursed more on the blog, because it reminded me of a line in the movie that her character had. At one point in the film, after her blog has become really popular and well known, and she’s been given offers to make books and movies about it, she receives a call from a journalist who tells her than Julia Child doesn’t like her or her blog. Julie is upset and asks her husband Eric, “Do you think it’s because I used the f-word occasionally?” I need to set aside some time to read the rest of her blog and both books (My Life in France by Julia Child and Julia & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell).

I find it hard to believe that Julia Child didn’t understand what Julie Powell was doing. Julie needed something to jumpstart her life. She hated her job, but she loved cooking. Powell set out to achieve a goal, and made sure that she completed the challenge by blogging about it. Blogging about it basically promised her readers that she would complete the challenge, and made her keep working at it. Although she came across challenges and meltdowns on the way, the end result was something better than she could have ever imagined. Her story was made into a successful book and film. If I were Julia Child, and was helping others without even knowing it, I would be flattered and would have eaten a meal with Julie Powell. I’m saying that now, but maybe if I were a world-renowned chef who was born about 100 years ago I would feel differently.

In conclusion, check out the blog! See the film! Buy the books!