Book Review – Julie and Julia
Julie Powell Cooks 524 of Julia Child's Recipes, In Just 365 Days
Sep 9, 2009
Author, blogger, and cook Julie Powell opens up her life to reader's in the book Julie and Julie: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. Powell documents the year in her life that she decides to challenge herself to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Julie Powell's State of Despairs
Julie Powell is a woman in her late twenties, who has been trolling from temp job to temp job her entire time in New York City. She finally takes on a full time position as a secretary at a government agency, but she takes it knowing that she will risk being extremely unhappy in her career.
On a much needed sanity break trip to her parents’ house in Texas, she finds her mom’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia’s Child’s first cookbook. Julie is intrigued by the book and by what Julia went through in order to write it. Once she is back in New York, Julie is inspired. With the support of her husband, Eric, she decides to challenge herself to cook all 524 recipes in the book, in just 365 days.
The Project
Armed with the support of Eric and the curiosity of her friends, Julie takes on “The Book”, with many disasters and triumphs along the way. She pushes her limits and jumps outside of her comfort zone, blogging about each misstep and success along the way.
The blogging part of the Project is really the aspect of the book that brings the whole ordeal to fruition. To simply attempt to cook a lot of traditional French recipes in one’s home isn’t all that exciting. But, when Julie wrote the daily anecdotes on her blog, the Project really gained steam.
She gained support from close friends and family, as well as from complete strangers. Of course, with the support, came some criticism. Criticism that Julie handles with the grace of an authentically stressed out person; meaning she got understandably upset. Her honesty of the way she felt when criticized by a reader of her blog, or when she messed up the same dish over and over was, well honest. However, at times the angst was a bit too much.
While reading this book, it is very apparent that Julie Powell is a stressed out, slightly unhappy person. She is desperately clinging to her Project because she wants something in her life that gives her meaning. None of this should be held against her, any person in her position would feel the same way. The way she handles her emotions is entertaining; but if the reader has never been in a dead end, soul sucking job, then the ability to relate to her angst would be difficult.
This being said, the emotions are nothing short of real. And if a reader can relate to Julie’s position in the mad race of adulthood; then the angst is even more real, and so relatable. So many people would love a “Project.” Something else, something to create that meaning of life that is attainable, but sometimes hard to find.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Julia Child
The blog and Julie’s raw emotion are one side of Julie and Julia. The other side is about Julia Child and the cooking. Julia Child was a pioneer. She brought French cooking to mainstream America and tiresomely explained every aspect of a recipe, with the hope that even the most basic of home cooks would find success.
In order to give the readers some background on Julia Child’s life, Julie Powell uses letters that Julia and her husband Paul wrote, as well as information from Julia Child’s biography, Appetite for Life, by Noel Riley Fitch. Through these references, and her imagination, Julie creates scenes between Julia and Paul, which are meant to give the reader an idea of where Julia Child was coming from.
At times these except were entertaining, but they came across as forced and unnecessary for the story that Julie was trying to tell; that is the story of her experience, not of Julia Child’s. Although Julie makes it clear that the exchanges between Paul and Julia Child were completely contrived in her mind, it felt like she took too many liberties with Paul and Julia Child’s feelings and thoughts and as a reader, this felt unnatural.
The recipes that Julia Child so painstakingly recorded were all cooked by Julie Powell; though, wisely, not each one is highlighted in Julie and Julia. The major successes and the major failures; the time when Julie and her husband, Eric, nearly got divorced over some sauce; the times where they had to order pizza because the meal was inedible are the cooking highlights of the book. Some of it will make the readers hungry, and some might just ruin their appetites.
Nonetheless, Julie demonstrates the sheer joy and pain of cooking, and truly uses a unique way to describe food. She does not use the typical Food Network host’s jargon. Instead, she is vulgar, original, and says what is on her mind. The food and the cooking and Julie’s description of it all are the highlights of the book. Perhaps she went too far with her emotions and her Julia Child stories, but she reels it all back in with her description of how she boned a duck.
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