8:00am Monday 22nd February 2010
APPROACHING her 30th birthday and dissatisfied with the way her life was going, Julie Powell decided she needed a ‘project’.
Picking up food on the way home one evening, she found that she had serendipitously bought the ingredients for Julia Child’s potage parmentier and the challenge was on.
As she ate that evening, the idea was born and she set herself the task of cooking her way through every one of 524 butter and cream-laden recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking – in 365 days.
Every day after work as a secretary at a government office in downtown New York, Julie returned to the tiny Long Island City apartment she shared with husband Eric, three cats and a pet snake, to grapple with Julia’s often complicated instructions to master the art of omelettes, bifteck saute au beurre, Veau Prince Orloff, tarts of every description, an awful lot of offal and, the coup de grace, boning a duck for Pate de Canard en Croute. Along the way, she puts on 20lbs in weight and overcomes her squeamishness to despatch a lobster for Homard Thermidor, and committed every day’s achievements, setbacks, anecdotes and observations to her blog - the Julie/Julia Project.
The resulting book, Julie & Julia – My Year of Cooking Dangerously, was last year turned into a film, with Meryl Streep as Julia Childs and Amy Adams as Julie. Anyone who turns to the book after seeing the film will discover that writer and director Nora Ephron performed as efficient a filleting job as Julie does on her duck and added a little sugar, subtracted a bit of spice, to create the screen version.
Although the admiration you can’t help but feel for Julie’s attack of the considerable challenge she’s set herself is tempered occasionally by her notalways- so-sweet personality, Julie & Julia is a delicious slice of real life – funny, inspiring and exhausting, Julie Powell was born and raised in Austin, Texas. She attended Amherst College, graduating in 1995 with a double major in theater and creative writing.
While working for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in August 2002, Powell began the Julie/Julia Project, a blog chronicling her attempt to cook all the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
The blog quickly gained a large following and attracted media attention. Her book, Julie & Julia, was published in 2005.
Her second book, Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession was published at the end of last year.
Book relives year of kitchen nightmares WIN AWATERSTONE’S GIFT CARD LET us know what you think about Julie & Julia and you could win a £10 Waterstone’s gift card. Email your review to leisure@herefordtimes.com or post it to HT Book Group, Hereford Times, Holmer Road, Hereford HR4 9UJ, with your name, address and contact details. Usual competition rules apply. Deadline is midnight on Monday, March 1.
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