Julie & Julia

August 7th was a big day. It was my sister's birthday. AND it was the day that the movie Julie & Julia finally came out!!

If you've been reading my blog, you know that I am a bit...shall we say obsessed?...with Julia Child.

I've been excited about this movie for months. My sister loves to cook and we love bonding over food. How perfect to see this movie with her on her birthday! My mom, sister, and I had such a nice time together.

You'd think my mounting excitement over the past few months would only set me up to be disappointed. No. I loved it. I just loved it.

The movie alternates between telling Julie Powell's story and Julia Child's story. Both are true stories. Julie's story is about her attempt to break the monotony of her life by cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. She chronicles her culinary adventures on a blog she names, "The Julie/Julia Project". The project not only brings excitement and opportunities into her life, but gives her an insight into who she really is.

Julia Child's story is based on her autobiography called My Life in France. The movie follows her as she learns to cook at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She eventually gets involved in writing a cookbook that becomes Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Amy Adams (Julie Powell) and Meryl Streep (Julia) are just wonderful in their roles. I can't get over how much Meryl Streep looks like Julia in her scenes (especially the reenactments of The French Chef episodes!). The movie artfully jumps back and forth between their stories and I really identified with each character.

One thing I really liked about this movie was it's depiction of marriage. I was reading an article recently that said a lot of movies show the "falling in love" phase of relationships or they show marriages breaking down. The article (wish I could remember where I read it!) talks about how refreshing it is to watch a movie that paints a realistic picture of healthy, happy marriages. I don't know the current status of Julia Powell's marriage, but Paul and Julia Child had a famously successful marriage. She adored him and he supported her hopes and dreams 100%. In the movie, Julie Powell's husband also loves and supports her and she loves and appreciates him. It just made me feel happy.

I could go on and on about the movie...but you should just go see it! Before the movie, my cooking teacher, Art, emailed me this article. It's very long, but really interesting. It begins by talking about the movie Julie & Julia, but then goes into commentary on the cooking trends in America and our overall attitude toward working in the kitchen. It's written by Michael Pollan who recently wrote a book called In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.

Anyway...it is unlikely that I'll become a famous cookbook author or TV personality like Julia Child...but, as I've said before, Julia inspires me to believe that it will never be too late for me to pursue my passions and become who I am meant to be.

"Ali & Julia"

This is Julia Child

There's a movie coming out called "Julie & Julia". You can see a preview here.

This young woman named Julie, decided to embark on a project where she would cook all of Julia Child's recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. She kept a blog of her adventures, successes, and failures. Her blog ended up being so popular that it became a book. Then the book became a movie with Meryl Streep in it! Now she is rich and her life is probably awesome. I'm jealous.

The book looks like this:

I could talk about Julia Child all the time...I love her that much. When I was younger, I was terrified of her because she was so tall and awkward looking. And because her voice was shrill and scary sounding. I was also disinterested in cooking and food and France. Now I'm obsessed with cooking and food and France. Therefore, I'm obsessed with her.

It all started in the year 2007. For my birthday, my husband bought me a book called My Life in France. It looks like this:It's basically an autobiography (her nephew wrote it after endless interviews with her) about her life in France and how she learned to cook. He got it for me because we went to Paris for our honeymoon and I also was interested in being a better cook.

I.loved.it.so.much.

Then, at Christmas, my sister got me Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I and a DVD set of The French Chef (Julia's TV show) (notice how I call her by her first name...because I pretend that we were friends and I'm on a first name basis with her).

I then borrowed the other two DVD sets of The French Chef from my cooking teacher and watched episodes all the time...over and over and over again.

Why do I love her so much, you ask? Here's a a few reasons:

1. She was a million feet tall and didn't let it bother her at all. (she even had the counters in her kitchen raised up to match her height).
   
2. She did not even know how to cook until she was in her 40's. When she had a goal, she went for it. She decided she wanted to cook so she went to culinary school and ended up having an enormous culinary career. She has helped me to believe that I can be whatever I want to be, whenever I want to be it.
3. She was a spy during WWII...seriously, how cool is that?
4. She had three times more personality than most people anyone I've ever met.
5. Her voice was so shrill that it can make you cringe at first...and then you grow to love it.
6. When she messed something up, she didn't let it phase her at all. She said on one of her shows that if she dropped something, she would just pick it back up..."Who is going to know?", she'd say.
   
7. She was an incredibly hard worker and wanted to do things right...but sometimes things went really wrong on her show and she just laughed it off.
8. She adored her husband from the day she married him until the day he died. She was truly devoted.
9. She did goofy things on her show and made up silly names for things. I especially like when she would slap around raw meet or make chickens sit up on their rear ends. Oh, I almost forgot...she used butter like there was no tomorrow.
10. She rescued America from frozen dinners and made housewives everywhere feel confident enough to try new flavorful ways of cooking. She helped us to realize that eating doesn't just have to be something you do to live...it can be something you are passionate about.

And these are all reasons why I wish there was a book called "Ali & Julia" (which would then be turned into a movie, which would make me rich and famous). Because she inspires me...and makes me laugh.

I wish I could have known her.

I think we would have been good friends.

8 Cookbooks for $14.00

~The Lesson for Today: Second hand bookstores are awesome ~

In my ongoing quest for kitchen inspiration, I often spend my down time paging through cookbooks of all sorts. My sister has loved cookbooks for a long time and I used to make fun of her for "reading" cookbooks like regular books. Now I do the exact same thing! I find them endlessly fascinating and will sometimes read them cover to cover.

As I've stated in previous posts...nothing pleases me more than going to the library and paying zero dollars to borrow and use as many cookbooks as I would like. But sometimes I just want to own certain cookbooks so I can use them whenever I want.

That's why I'm SO EXCITED about the store I discovered today. I was with my Dad and asked him about a second hand book store I had heard about in West Chester. He confirmed that it did indeed exist and that he even had a "Buy 2 Books Get 1 Free" coupon for it that he'd clipped from the paper. My Dad loves coupons...and I love that he loves coupons. The apple doesn't fall far...

Sonny and I drove over there today, coupon in hand. It's call Second Reading II and it's a donation based store that benefits the West Chester Area Senior Center. It was awesome! It was perfectly organized, had a large selection, and the special this month was 50% off of all cookbooks. I was in my glory.

In case you are interested, for a grand total of $14.00 I got...

~ All about how American cooking has evolved into new flavors from around the world~

~Recipes for stuffing anything from salmon to cupcakes~

~Recipes for eating with the seasons, the senses, and the soul~

~Annual recipes from Gourmet Magazine in 2000 with a special section on Thailand~

~ Cooking Light is awesome ~

~ If it tasted good in 1998, it tastes good now ~

~ All the recipes from Bon Appetit Magazine in 2000 ~

I also got a book called A Clove of Garlic by Katy Holder and Gail Duff (couldn't find a picture online). It gives the history of garlic, its health benefits, and tons of recipes for how to incorporate it into your diet.

I can't wait to try some new recipes in the weeks to come!

Speaking of Books...

In my first Read, Talk, Eat post I wrote about some good book club recipes. After I wrote that post, I came across the coolest books/cookbooks in my local library.

I've been frequenting the library lately because I love books and can't afford to buy a lot of them. I used to have an attitude about the library. Why would I want to read books that have been handled by strangers? Then I grew up and had to pay bills...needless to say, I dug out the old library card (which I got when I was in third grade...the signature is rather cute as I had just learned how to write in cursive).

Anyway.

I've been checking out a lot of cookbooks lately for inspiration. I found three this past week that related so well to using cooking/food to socialize and planning ahead when you cook.

So here's where I play the part of book critic:

The Book Club Cookbook: Recipes and Food for Thought from your Book Club's Favorite Books and Authors
By: Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp
You can buy it lots of places and on Amazon

Because I'm such a book lover, one look at the table of contents causes my heart to flutter. The authors have chosen 100 books and paired them with recipes that relate to each book in some way. The books range from classics to contemporary best sellers.

Sometimes the recipes match the books country of origin like the recipe for Scallion-Ginger Fried Rice given in the chapter on The Good Earth by Pearl Buck (set in China). Sometimes the recipes are for food mentioned in the book like the recipe for Roman Punch in the chapter on The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Sometimes the recipes go with a book's theme like Hot Cocoa for Chocolat (by Joanne Harris) or Honey Cakes for The Secret Life of Bees (by Sue Monk Kidd).

Each chapter includes a brief synopsis of the book, an explanation of how different foods play a role in the book, and one or two recipes based on those foods. Then the authors profile a book club that has read that book. There's even a "More Food for Thought" section in each chapter that gives suggestions for ways to pair certain foods with the book.

This book is endlessly fascinating to me because it has recipes like a cookbook, but reads like a regular book. I have a feeling I'll be buying this book before too long.

The Cooking Club Cookbook: Six Friends Show you how to Bake, Broil, and Bond
By: Katherine Fausset, Cynthia Harris, Lucia Quartararo, Lisa Singer, Rebecca Sample Gerstung, and Sharon Cohen Fredman
Again, it's available lots of places and on Amazon

This cookbook chronicles the adventures of a group of young women living in New York City. In a city that's infamous for eating out, these gals decided that they were going to use their tiny kitchens to learn how to cook...and they were in it together. They started a cooking club and learned how to cook a variety of foods based on a variety of themes. Each chapter centers around a certain cuisine or topic. There's a chapter called "Chow Bella" (Italian), "Far East Feast" (Asian), and "Oil of Ole" (Spanish). There are also chapters based on comfort food, sexy food, and lighter fare. Some of the recipes are kind of out there, but they are interesting to read. Other recipes sound easy and delicious. I really enjoy the little excerpts from the girls' emails conversations that show how each menu originated. This book really shows how cooking and food can bring people together.

Cook for the Week: Leisurely Weekend Cooking for Easy Weekday Meals By: Diane Morgan, Dan Taggart, and Kathleen Taggart
Available on Amazon

This book completely goes with my philosophy of prep-ahead cooking. It's truly awesome. Each chapter is set up with a weekend menu and then weekday meals that can be made in a flash by using things from the weekend. The recipes are sophisticated and packed full of helpful tips for cooking, choosing ingredients, varying ingredients, and storing food. They have set it up in such an easy to read and understand format. For example, they give you a recipe for roast chicken with lemon, garlic and rosemary. Their philosophy is to roast two chickens instead of one. Serve one of the roast chickens on the weekend with herbed drop biscuits, steamed broccoli, and chocolate cheesecake (um...yum.). Then take the other roast chicken and leftover broccoli and use them to make biscuit-topped chicken pie, linguine and broccoli and blue cheese, and Asian chicken salad later in the week. I am definitly planning to try some of these weekly plans because they are practical and sound delicious. So cool.


So there you have it, folks. The library is a great place to find new recipes and inspiration for your kitchen adventures...and to rent seasons of Murder, She Wrote on DVD.