
A few months ago I read Julia Child's
My Life in France. Julia found her bliss in her late 30s. She enrolled in the Cordon Bleu school of cooking while living in Paris with her diplomat husband. This started her on the road to writing
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which led to a television cooking career.
This week I finished reading
Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. This book tells how an almost 30, government secretary found
her bliss. Julie set herself the task of making every recipe found in
Mastering the Art of French Cooking. That's 524 recipes in 365 days.
To me, that's a formidable task. I can take experimenting in the kitchen in small doses only. After I try a new recipe, give me a few weeks to recover, please! That's why you'll find me cooking the same things over and over in my kitchen. Most recently, it's been individual artichoke pizzas using pita bread. Sooooo good! But that's another story.
Not only did Julie decide to make all these recipes in a limited time frame, she did it by shopping after work and often cooking late into the night. That's dedication. I don't like to be in the kitchen after 8 p. m.
At her husband's suggestion, Julie recorded her adventure on a
blog. People started commenting, and her following grew. This led to media coverage, interviews, a book deal, and now a movie*. So now we know that French cooking has been life changing to at least two women in America.
* The movie, Julie & Julia will be released August 7, 2009. Directed by Nora Ephron, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.