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Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul!
Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that’s going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.
At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crépes, she realizes there’s more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia’s stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver.
And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life’s ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.
Julie Powell is 30-years-old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that’s going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes. In the span of one year.
At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crépes, she realizes there’s more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye. With Julia’s stern warble always in her ear, Julie haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She sends her husband on late-night runs for yet more butter and rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver.
And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life’s ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.
310 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2005
About the author
Julie Powell
7 books347 followersJulie Powell was born and raised in Austin, Texas, where she first fell in love with cooking — and her husband, Eric. She was the author of a cooking memoir, Julie & Julia, which was released in 2005. Her writing has appeared in Bon Appétit, The New York Times, House Beautiful, and Archaeology Magazine, among others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,391 reviews
June 21, 2007
it seemed so simple, and so brilliant and so the perfect type of book for me, i remember thinking as i perused--i forget what, probably the new york times--and saw a reference to julie powell's julie and julia project.
a woman who dedicated her year to learning how to cook.
like me. i hoped for inspiration--for my writing, for my cooking, for ideas that i could incorporate into both.
i immediately ordered a copy. or maybe i went straight to borders after work. i started reading the night i got it. that's how eager i was.
and then i put it down in disgust. it wasn't her language--i'm from new jersey, i can swear like a sailor and appreciate the release it offers in one's vocabulary. it was her attitude. whiny. despairing. woe-is-me.
that was my first turn-off.
several months later, i picked it up again, convinced that i had just given it short shrift. it's pretty rare, after all, that i don't bother to finish a book that i've started. i got much farther into the book this time--nearly halfway--and again, i got distracted and annoyed by her writing style. this, i rationalized, may have been because i had started the book all over again from the beginning instead of merely picking up where i left off, giving all of the original prejudices a chance to rear their heads again. i donated the book to a used book store.
and then, in spite of myself, i picked up another copy off of a discount table at barnes and noble. surely, surely the third time would be the charm. surely the information and hope that i had envisioned were somewhere within the pages of this conceptually brilliant book.
so this time, just last week, i decided to throw it into my weekend travel bag for a 3-hour train ride and give it one last try. i started from where i'd left off, approximately. i read it non-stop for 3 hours. and it did, at last, begin to grow on me. i shared her affinity for buffy, her inability to make pastry cream even after a dozen practices. i loved her chapter about her murderous rampage of the lobsters in new york city. and here is where i really found the weakness of this book--not in the tone, or the despair, or the language or the attitude. it was actually in the structure of the book itself.
julie seemed incapable of adhering to a timeline. everything was an anecdote that tied back to something else. and since she wasn't really writing chronologically, on a recipe-by-recipe basis, each anecdote had to be explained before it could be joined with the cooking example at hand. she interrupted her best chapter, about the lobsters, with a story about being home for christmas and finding out that her best friend wants to have an affair with a punk rocker from bath.
every successive example of seriously good writing was similarly misspent. her chapter about preparing to cook for a food reporter--interrupted. her chapter about the final month of the Project--scattered to the winds.
and above all, she doesn't write enough about the food, which is what i really wanted to hear. yes, i sympathize about her government-secretary-syndrome, but i don't want to hear abotu how your day sucked, i want to hear about cooking that day's recipe and how it affected your day. were you mad while you were shopping? did the recipe turn out? what, for heaven's sake, were you even making? how far into the Project are you?
(these tidbits were scattered across the chapter heads, but there was nothing more specific than that)
her writing lacked the consideration, the sensuality, even the day-to-day rhythm of, say, nigel slater's kitchen diaries. he made everything sound sexy. even the recipes that failed were still fantastic to read about. it made me think about how incorporate food and cooking into my daily life and how shopping for lunch can be a hassle, but it can also be the highlight of your day.
nigel made the food sound sexy.
julie talks about how cooking ruined her sex life.
enough said, right?
a woman who dedicated her year to learning how to cook.
like me. i hoped for inspiration--for my writing, for my cooking, for ideas that i could incorporate into both.
i immediately ordered a copy. or maybe i went straight to borders after work. i started reading the night i got it. that's how eager i was.
and then i put it down in disgust. it wasn't her language--i'm from new jersey, i can swear like a sailor and appreciate the release it offers in one's vocabulary. it was her attitude. whiny. despairing. woe-is-me.
that was my first turn-off.
several months later, i picked it up again, convinced that i had just given it short shrift. it's pretty rare, after all, that i don't bother to finish a book that i've started. i got much farther into the book this time--nearly halfway--and again, i got distracted and annoyed by her writing style. this, i rationalized, may have been because i had started the book all over again from the beginning instead of merely picking up where i left off, giving all of the original prejudices a chance to rear their heads again. i donated the book to a used book store.
and then, in spite of myself, i picked up another copy off of a discount table at barnes and noble. surely, surely the third time would be the charm. surely the information and hope that i had envisioned were somewhere within the pages of this conceptually brilliant book.
so this time, just last week, i decided to throw it into my weekend travel bag for a 3-hour train ride and give it one last try. i started from where i'd left off, approximately. i read it non-stop for 3 hours. and it did, at last, begin to grow on me. i shared her affinity for buffy, her inability to make pastry cream even after a dozen practices. i loved her chapter about her murderous rampage of the lobsters in new york city. and here is where i really found the weakness of this book--not in the tone, or the despair, or the language or the attitude. it was actually in the structure of the book itself.
julie seemed incapable of adhering to a timeline. everything was an anecdote that tied back to something else. and since she wasn't really writing chronologically, on a recipe-by-recipe basis, each anecdote had to be explained before it could be joined with the cooking example at hand. she interrupted her best chapter, about the lobsters, with a story about being home for christmas and finding out that her best friend wants to have an affair with a punk rocker from bath.
every successive example of seriously good writing was similarly misspent. her chapter about preparing to cook for a food reporter--interrupted. her chapter about the final month of the Project--scattered to the winds.
and above all, she doesn't write enough about the food, which is what i really wanted to hear. yes, i sympathize about her government-secretary-syndrome, but i don't want to hear abotu how your day sucked, i want to hear about cooking that day's recipe and how it affected your day. were you mad while you were shopping? did the recipe turn out? what, for heaven's sake, were you even making? how far into the Project are you?
(these tidbits were scattered across the chapter heads, but there was nothing more specific than that)
her writing lacked the consideration, the sensuality, even the day-to-day rhythm of, say, nigel slater's kitchen diaries. he made everything sound sexy. even the recipes that failed were still fantastic to read about. it made me think about how incorporate food and cooking into my daily life and how shopping for lunch can be a hassle, but it can also be the highlight of your day.
nigel made the food sound sexy.
julie talks about how cooking ruined her sex life.
enough said, right?
December 25, 2020
I can see how this book was a successful blog. It's more a series of snacks than a grand a la carte meal in a French restaurant. The author's endless repetition of her hatred for Republicans, her job as a secretary and the use of her favourite words fuck and suck, neither of them used sexually, probably give you the flavour of this slight one-note book. A snarky, sarky, endlessly-whining personality that is amusing to read on a daily blog, gets a bit much in a full-length book. Reading it is a bit like having to eat all your meals at McDonalds every day from Sunday for a week. By Wednesday, you'd long for a salad and maybe a refreshing sorbet, but it would be yet another flabby burger with underdone and slightly wilted fries.
Julia Child is, for non-Americans, not much more than a name than some people might recognise but the imagined episodes of her life in the book are teasing and delicious. She was a very unusual woman, far more interesting than the author herself but the author wrote about her well. Therein lies hope. If Julie Powell can write this well when not writing about herself, then maybe there will be other, non-autobiographical books in the future.
An addendum. I used to belong to a private group on GR of women trying to lose weight. They were all American. They HATED this book with a passion, I mean more than a passion. They wanted the author punished and no one to stock her books and everyone to 1-star her. What was her crime? She was a Democrat. I stood up for her because I am not an American and I don't much care about US internal affairs. Anyway they threw me out and all of them banned me!
(One later wrote in an IM to the mod of a private group that I was a whore who had lived with two men at the same time. The mod thought it was funny. It was true, except I'm not a whore, and the men, my first and later my second husband, were in different countries and knew about each other. Indeed my first husband was at the birth of my baby in London and the baby father in the Caribbean phoned and thanked him.)
Now strangely, not long after this I was friendly and in a secret group with another set of Americans. All Democrats. There were problems over the same book. They all wanted me to agree that Republicans were the devil's spawn. The only man in the group took me to task about defending evil Republicans. They threw me out too. I wasn't respectful enough to the guy apparently. Oh. Right. There you go.
These two events hurt me so much that I had to console myself with several bars of chocolate and a whole evening of Masterchef. And rereading and editing this review again, I am still so distraught that I am going to have to finish the bottle of chocolate Baileys and hope I feel better then.
Kind of rewritten 4 Jan 2016
Julia Child is, for non-Americans, not much more than a name than some people might recognise but the imagined episodes of her life in the book are teasing and delicious. She was a very unusual woman, far more interesting than the author herself but the author wrote about her well. Therein lies hope. If Julie Powell can write this well when not writing about herself, then maybe there will be other, non-autobiographical books in the future.
An addendum. I used to belong to a private group on GR of women trying to lose weight. They were all American. They HATED this book with a passion, I mean more than a passion. They wanted the author punished and no one to stock her books and everyone to 1-star her. What was her crime? She was a Democrat. I stood up for her because I am not an American and I don't much care about US internal affairs. Anyway they threw me out and all of them banned me!
(One later wrote in an IM to the mod of a private group that I was a whore who had lived with two men at the same time. The mod thought it was funny. It was true, except I'm not a whore, and the men, my first and later my second husband, were in different countries and knew about each other. Indeed my first husband was at the birth of my baby in London and the baby father in the Caribbean phoned and thanked him.)
Now strangely, not long after this I was friendly and in a secret group with another set of Americans. All Democrats. There were problems over the same book. They all wanted me to agree that Republicans were the devil's spawn. The only man in the group took me to task about defending evil Republicans. They threw me out too. I wasn't respectful enough to the guy apparently. Oh. Right. There you go.
These two events hurt me so much that I had to console myself with several bars of chocolate and a whole evening of Masterchef. And rereading and editing this review again, I am still so distraught that I am going to have to finish the bottle of chocolate Baileys and hope I feel better then.
Kind of rewritten 4 Jan 2016
December 9, 2017
Author Julia Powell is a mix of many people. From page one, when she tells us she sold her own eggs to pay off credit debt, she is much like the dreaded person seated next to you on a long-haul flight that proceeds to tell you their life story in a matter of minutes. She is also the TMI girl that we all know, whose narrative describes the smell of her burps and piss, bitches incessantly about her job and Republicans, describes smelly cocks, drinks too many cocktails, tells us she sleeps with her face on her husband's ass, says fuck every other word and undoubtedly finds herself witty and funny while being oblivious to the gaping jaws and cringes of those around her. She smacks and insults her loving and patient husband while contemplating cheating on him and living vicariously through her slutty friends, both single and married. (I smell a divorce cooking.)
In short, she is the loud girl we all wish would shut the fuck up.
She also started a year-long cooking/blog project -- an idea given to her and set up by the very husband she treats like garbage -- to cook every recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She proceeds to alter and screw up recipes, partly due to their difficulty, partly due to her bad planning, and mostly due to her own stupidity: i.e., boning a fowl isn't that difficult so stop stressing about it; why don't you try asking the butcher if he can slice the bone marrow for you instead of trying it yourself and making a disgusting mess?; please don't tell us about getting lobster meat out with a tweezer. We are, of course, supposed to laugh at this and find it all funny. Ha. Ha.
As she embarked on this culinary journey, I couldn't help but remember that she'd mentioned having three cats and a python, and being disgusted that this was the environment in which she'd be cooking. But no worries. She will of course tell us about the cat hair in the kitchen and in the food, along with the dead mice for her snake shoved in the same bag as her cooking ingredients. And the vegetables falling on the rotted out kitchen floor, which she naturally picks up and throws into the pot. And the flies in her kitchen. That lead her to find the maggots. In her kitchen. Yummy.
Julie ends up getting lots of media attention, a big blog following, a book/movie deal out of the whole thing. An ignorant reader like myself gains a new appreciation for the complexity of Julia Child's recipes and something like (but not quite) admiration for the author actually going through with cooking every recipe in the book.
This will not go on my "sucked" shelf, as is certainly didn't suck. I give it one star for being very readable and for being a somewhat touching story of how one nobody became somebody all by herself. I simply didn't like her tone. I just couldn't take it.
I hear she has a sequel coming out next month, this time about being a butcher. Would I read it? Absolutely. Not because I want to read about her mutilating dead animals and describing even more bodily functions we don't need to know about. Really, I'm dying to know if she divorces that kind husband who was by her side the whole time. I'm betting she did.
In short, she is the loud girl we all wish would shut the fuck up.
She also started a year-long cooking/blog project -- an idea given to her and set up by the very husband she treats like garbage -- to cook every recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She proceeds to alter and screw up recipes, partly due to their difficulty, partly due to her bad planning, and mostly due to her own stupidity: i.e., boning a fowl isn't that difficult so stop stressing about it; why don't you try asking the butcher if he can slice the bone marrow for you instead of trying it yourself and making a disgusting mess?; please don't tell us about getting lobster meat out with a tweezer. We are, of course, supposed to laugh at this and find it all funny. Ha. Ha.
As she embarked on this culinary journey, I couldn't help but remember that she'd mentioned having three cats and a python, and being disgusted that this was the environment in which she'd be cooking. But no worries. She will of course tell us about the cat hair in the kitchen and in the food, along with the dead mice for her snake shoved in the same bag as her cooking ingredients. And the vegetables falling on the rotted out kitchen floor, which she naturally picks up and throws into the pot. And the flies in her kitchen. That lead her to find the maggots. In her kitchen. Yummy.
Julie ends up getting lots of media attention, a big blog following, a book/movie deal out of the whole thing. An ignorant reader like myself gains a new appreciation for the complexity of Julia Child's recipes and something like (but not quite) admiration for the author actually going through with cooking every recipe in the book.
This will not go on my "sucked" shelf, as is certainly didn't suck. I give it one star for being very readable and for being a somewhat touching story of how one nobody became somebody all by herself. I simply didn't like her tone. I just couldn't take it.
I hear she has a sequel coming out next month, this time about being a butcher. Would I read it? Absolutely. Not because I want to read about her mutilating dead animals and describing even more bodily functions we don't need to know about. Really, I'm dying to know if she divorces that kind husband who was by her side the whole time. I'm betting she did.
April 14, 2016
In the immortal words of Michael Bluth: "I don't know what I expected."
I knew what I was getting into with this, I really did. It is a well-documented fact that Julie Powell is a delusional asshole (if you need a good laugh, look at the reviews for Cleaving, her second book - they all essentially boil down to "Wow, so turns out Julie Powell is horrible"), and even if I hadn't been aware of this, there's the fact that whenever I watch the movie adaptation of Julie and Julia, I skip the Julie parts because even Amy Adams, who is literal human sunshine, cannot make that woman appealing in any sense of the word.
Actually, the whole reason I decided to get this book from the library is because the movie was on TV the other day, and I got morbidly curious about Julie Powell's side of the story. I had already read Julia Child's My Life in France, which was the inspiration for the Julia parts of the movie, so I decided that it only made sense to complete the experience and read Powell's book.
Powell wastes no time letting her readers know exactly what kind of monster she is. On page eight (Eight! We're not even into the double-digit pages yet!) we get to see Powell's version of an Oprah "Ah-ha moment." I mentioned this in one of my status updates already, but I feel it's important that I fully explain this scene. Basically, Powell is waiting in the subway one day and witnesses:
"...a plug of a woman, her head of salt-and-pepper hair shorn into the sort of crew cut they give the mentally disabled, who had plopped down on the concrete directly behind me.
...The loon started smacking her forehead with the heel of her palm. 'Fuck!' she yelled. 'Fuck! FUCK!' ...The loon placed both palms down on the concrete in front of her and - CRACK! - smacked her forehead hard on the ground.
...It was only once I was in the car, squeezed in shoulder to shoulder, the lot of us hanging by one hand from the overhead bar like slaughtered cows on the trundling train, that it came to me - as if some omnipotent God of City Dwellers were whispering the truth in my ear - that the only two reasons I hadn't joined right in with the loon with the gray crew cut, beating my head and screaming 'Fuck!' in primal syncopation, were (1) I'd be embarrassed and (2) I didn't want to get my cute vintage suit any dirtier than it already was. Performance anxiety and a dry-cleaning bill; those were the only things keeping me from stark raving lunacy."
So in addition to being an asshole, Julie Powell also might be a sociopath, because who does that? How much of a selfish, raging narcissist do you have to become in order to watch what is clearly a mentally ill person having a disturbing episode, and your first response is, "Ugh, same"?! And then you record the scene in your memoir and frame it as some kind of profound breakthrough moment for you? Gee, I'm so glad that person had a mental breakdown and seriously injured themselves so you could have an epiphany, Julie Powell.
(you may be wondering: how does this experience lead to Powell deciding to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking? I read the damn book and I couldn't even tell you.)
So anyway, Powell starts working her way through Julia Child's cookbook, keeping a blog about her progress. (This means we get a delightfully dated scene where Powell's husband suggests she start a blog, and Julie's like, what the hell is a blog? 2002 was a simpler time.) As many reviewers have pointed out, the blog-to-memoir transition was done pretty clumsily, with scenes happening out of sequence and a nonsensical structure - Powell will start a chapter about some recipe she was working on, and then break for a lengthy flashback that has almost no relation to the beginning of the chapter. It's very difficult to follow the progress she's making through the cookbook, and all the flashbacks and timeline-skipping meant that I never had any clear idea of where I was in the project, unless Powell directly referenced the date.
Along with the messy structure, another big issue with the book is that Powell is...not a great writer. She's clearly trying to be self-depreciating, and make us think that she's rolling her eyes right along with us whenever we read a scene of her throwing a tantrum about mayonnaise - but the problem is that I wasn't shaking my head and smiling in bemusement, like Powell wants me to. I was just thinking, "you are horrible, and telling me that you know you're being horrible doesn't help." Powell doesn't have the writing skill to redeem herself in the narrative, and on top of that, her prose is often practically unreadable. Try this excerpt on for size, and see if it makes any goddamn sense to you on the first reading:
"My mother is a clean freak, my father a dirty bird, semi-reformed. Between them, they have managed to raise one child who by all accounts could not care less about basic cleanliness, but whose environs and person are always somehow above reproach, and another child who sees as irrevocable humiliation any imputation of less than impeccable housekeeping or hygiene, and yet, regardless of near-constant near-hysteria on the subject, is almost always an utter mess."
Well, now I guess we know what it would sound like if Charlotte Bronte wrote all her books drunk. It made me long for the effortless, evocative writing Julia Child presented in My Life in France - her description of the proper technique for scrambling eggs is practically poetry.
And that is what really sets Julie Powell apart from Julia Child: Child loved to cook, and Powell does not. Her project, and every recipe she describes, are never presented as anything other than a chore she has to get through. There is no joy in Powell's book, no love for the dishes she prepares. And frankly, a lot of Powell's book is pretty gross. Her kitchen is always a disaster scene, with dirty surfaces and piles of unwashed dishes. Which, fine - you're working a full-time job and cooking gourmet meals every night, obviously you're going to slack off on cleaning again. But then Powell discovers that there are maggots living under her dish rack, and I was fucking done.
With Julie and Julia, Julie Powell has managed to do the unthinkable: she wrote a cooking memoir that didn't make me feel hungry, not once in three hundred pages. I'm pretty sure that's a capital offense in some countries.
I knew what I was getting into with this, I really did. It is a well-documented fact that Julie Powell is a delusional asshole (if you need a good laugh, look at the reviews for Cleaving, her second book - they all essentially boil down to "Wow, so turns out Julie Powell is horrible"), and even if I hadn't been aware of this, there's the fact that whenever I watch the movie adaptation of Julie and Julia, I skip the Julie parts because even Amy Adams, who is literal human sunshine, cannot make that woman appealing in any sense of the word.
Actually, the whole reason I decided to get this book from the library is because the movie was on TV the other day, and I got morbidly curious about Julie Powell's side of the story. I had already read Julia Child's My Life in France, which was the inspiration for the Julia parts of the movie, so I decided that it only made sense to complete the experience and read Powell's book.
Powell wastes no time letting her readers know exactly what kind of monster she is. On page eight (Eight! We're not even into the double-digit pages yet!) we get to see Powell's version of an Oprah "Ah-ha moment." I mentioned this in one of my status updates already, but I feel it's important that I fully explain this scene. Basically, Powell is waiting in the subway one day and witnesses:
"...a plug of a woman, her head of salt-and-pepper hair shorn into the sort of crew cut they give the mentally disabled, who had plopped down on the concrete directly behind me.
...The loon started smacking her forehead with the heel of her palm. 'Fuck!' she yelled. 'Fuck! FUCK!' ...The loon placed both palms down on the concrete in front of her and - CRACK! - smacked her forehead hard on the ground.
...It was only once I was in the car, squeezed in shoulder to shoulder, the lot of us hanging by one hand from the overhead bar like slaughtered cows on the trundling train, that it came to me - as if some omnipotent God of City Dwellers were whispering the truth in my ear - that the only two reasons I hadn't joined right in with the loon with the gray crew cut, beating my head and screaming 'Fuck!' in primal syncopation, were (1) I'd be embarrassed and (2) I didn't want to get my cute vintage suit any dirtier than it already was. Performance anxiety and a dry-cleaning bill; those were the only things keeping me from stark raving lunacy."
So in addition to being an asshole, Julie Powell also might be a sociopath, because who does that? How much of a selfish, raging narcissist do you have to become in order to watch what is clearly a mentally ill person having a disturbing episode, and your first response is, "Ugh, same"?! And then you record the scene in your memoir and frame it as some kind of profound breakthrough moment for you? Gee, I'm so glad that person had a mental breakdown and seriously injured themselves so you could have an epiphany, Julie Powell.
(you may be wondering: how does this experience lead to Powell deciding to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking? I read the damn book and I couldn't even tell you.)
So anyway, Powell starts working her way through Julia Child's cookbook, keeping a blog about her progress. (This means we get a delightfully dated scene where Powell's husband suggests she start a blog, and Julie's like, what the hell is a blog? 2002 was a simpler time.) As many reviewers have pointed out, the blog-to-memoir transition was done pretty clumsily, with scenes happening out of sequence and a nonsensical structure - Powell will start a chapter about some recipe she was working on, and then break for a lengthy flashback that has almost no relation to the beginning of the chapter. It's very difficult to follow the progress she's making through the cookbook, and all the flashbacks and timeline-skipping meant that I never had any clear idea of where I was in the project, unless Powell directly referenced the date.
Along with the messy structure, another big issue with the book is that Powell is...not a great writer. She's clearly trying to be self-depreciating, and make us think that she's rolling her eyes right along with us whenever we read a scene of her throwing a tantrum about mayonnaise - but the problem is that I wasn't shaking my head and smiling in bemusement, like Powell wants me to. I was just thinking, "you are horrible, and telling me that you know you're being horrible doesn't help." Powell doesn't have the writing skill to redeem herself in the narrative, and on top of that, her prose is often practically unreadable. Try this excerpt on for size, and see if it makes any goddamn sense to you on the first reading:
"My mother is a clean freak, my father a dirty bird, semi-reformed. Between them, they have managed to raise one child who by all accounts could not care less about basic cleanliness, but whose environs and person are always somehow above reproach, and another child who sees as irrevocable humiliation any imputation of less than impeccable housekeeping or hygiene, and yet, regardless of near-constant near-hysteria on the subject, is almost always an utter mess."
Well, now I guess we know what it would sound like if Charlotte Bronte wrote all her books drunk. It made me long for the effortless, evocative writing Julia Child presented in My Life in France - her description of the proper technique for scrambling eggs is practically poetry.
And that is what really sets Julie Powell apart from Julia Child: Child loved to cook, and Powell does not. Her project, and every recipe she describes, are never presented as anything other than a chore she has to get through. There is no joy in Powell's book, no love for the dishes she prepares. And frankly, a lot of Powell's book is pretty gross. Her kitchen is always a disaster scene, with dirty surfaces and piles of unwashed dishes. Which, fine - you're working a full-time job and cooking gourmet meals every night, obviously you're going to slack off on cleaning again. But then Powell discovers that there are maggots living under her dish rack, and I was fucking done.
With Julie and Julia, Julie Powell has managed to do the unthinkable: she wrote a cooking memoir that didn't make me feel hungry, not once in three hundred pages. I'm pretty sure that's a capital offense in some countries.
February 9, 2008
Completely and utterly disappointing.
I was so in love with the idea that Julie came up with: to recreate each of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I never had read her blog before, and my expectations for the book were high.
Unfortunately, Julie is a completely repulsive, unappealing and vulgar human being. Her self-deprecating - humor, was it? - didn't make me find her charmingly witty; rather, I just believed what she was telling me and decided that she was in fact the most disgusting person alive. The fact that she keeps her crappy apartment in filthy, squalor-like conditions (she had maggots growing in the kitchen that she was theoretically using on a daily basis) kinda made me want to throw up. If it hadn't been for my fascination with food and my love of Julia Child, I would have stopped reading (which is pretty rare for me).
The book isn't even about the cooking or Julia, not really, anyway. It's instead just a new platform for Julie to continue with her self-indulgent blogging.
I was so in love with the idea that Julie came up with: to recreate each of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I never had read her blog before, and my expectations for the book were high.
Unfortunately, Julie is a completely repulsive, unappealing and vulgar human being. Her self-deprecating - humor, was it? - didn't make me find her charmingly witty; rather, I just believed what she was telling me and decided that she was in fact the most disgusting person alive. The fact that she keeps her crappy apartment in filthy, squalor-like conditions (she had maggots growing in the kitchen that she was theoretically using on a daily basis) kinda made me want to throw up. If it hadn't been for my fascination with food and my love of Julia Child, I would have stopped reading (which is pretty rare for me).
The book isn't even about the cooking or Julia, not really, anyway. It's instead just a new platform for Julie to continue with her self-indulgent blogging.
August 17, 2007
I love the concept, I really do; not so much the finished product.
Had she not made the fuuny reference to my favorite line in Casablanca near the begininning of the book, I never would have been able to finish it. The thought of finding another gem like that made me stick with it even when I wanted to throw Julie out of a twenty-story window. The whiny, self-absorbed, melodramtic, narcissistic, trite (yet on occasion deliciously funny) Julie Powell decides to take up a project to add meaning to her life, or at least to distract herself from dealing with it: She decides that she is going to cook every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and that she is going to do it in the time span of a year.
Julie never mentions how many hours she actually works in a week at her "oh pity me, the lowly secretary who still makes enough money to live in New York and buy enough food to cook every single recipe in the Julia Child MtAoFC cookbook" job, but I honestly have a very difficult time believing that she worked full time, commuted, did the grocery shopping, cooked every single recipe in the book, wrote a blog, and yet still had time to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I mean, really, does anyone that gave this book five stars actually cook?!?) She does make the point very clear that she didn't clean at all that year. And she did allow herself to gain an untold amount of weight rather than work out. I suppose that gave her a little extra time to devote to this project. And on top of all that she expected her husband and her friends to support her insanity, wholeheartedly and unabashedly. Eric should have kept a blog for the year about putting up with Julie!
For a book about cooking, there is a sad lack of description regarding the various recipes. Sure, she does go into detail about excavating bone marrow and dismembering lobsters, but what about the food? I didn't get the impression that she actually loves food so much as that she has a gluttonous relationship to it. Don't want to deal with your feelings? That's okay, just stuff them down with extremely high fat foods and ignore the consequences. I have no patience for this sort of self defeatist behavior; the average overweight american who refuses to take responsibility for their own health and instead assumes a false sense of pride over being carefree about their food choices. And then just accepts a dependence upon pharmaceuticals to manage the ill effects. Is it really any wonder that heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States?
This may have been an entertaining blog, but the "My bleaders like me, they really like me!" tone did not translate very well into a book. If you have any interest whatsoever in her story, save yourself the money (and grief) of reading this book and just read her blog [http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/0...]
Had she not made the fuuny reference to my favorite line in Casablanca near the begininning of the book, I never would have been able to finish it. The thought of finding another gem like that made me stick with it even when I wanted to throw Julie out of a twenty-story window. The whiny, self-absorbed, melodramtic, narcissistic, trite (yet on occasion deliciously funny) Julie Powell decides to take up a project to add meaning to her life, or at least to distract herself from dealing with it: She decides that she is going to cook every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and that she is going to do it in the time span of a year.
Julie never mentions how many hours she actually works in a week at her "oh pity me, the lowly secretary who still makes enough money to live in New York and buy enough food to cook every single recipe in the Julia Child MtAoFC cookbook" job, but I honestly have a very difficult time believing that she worked full time, commuted, did the grocery shopping, cooked every single recipe in the book, wrote a blog, and yet still had time to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I mean, really, does anyone that gave this book five stars actually cook?!?) She does make the point very clear that she didn't clean at all that year. And she did allow herself to gain an untold amount of weight rather than work out. I suppose that gave her a little extra time to devote to this project. And on top of all that she expected her husband and her friends to support her insanity, wholeheartedly and unabashedly. Eric should have kept a blog for the year about putting up with Julie!
For a book about cooking, there is a sad lack of description regarding the various recipes. Sure, she does go into detail about excavating bone marrow and dismembering lobsters, but what about the food? I didn't get the impression that she actually loves food so much as that she has a gluttonous relationship to it. Don't want to deal with your feelings? That's okay, just stuff them down with extremely high fat foods and ignore the consequences. I have no patience for this sort of self defeatist behavior; the average overweight american who refuses to take responsibility for their own health and instead assumes a false sense of pride over being carefree about their food choices. And then just accepts a dependence upon pharmaceuticals to manage the ill effects. Is it really any wonder that heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States?
This may have been an entertaining blog, but the "My bleaders like me, they really like me!" tone did not translate very well into a book. If you have any interest whatsoever in her story, save yourself the money (and grief) of reading this book and just read her blog [http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/0...]
April 22, 2008
I read The Scavengers Guide to Haute Cuisine, and I really liked it. I figured this book would be along the same lines. Yeah, well, it wasn't. Instead of a book about cooking, it was a book about a whiny, pseudo-intellectual woman who tries to cook because her life is otherwise crappy. Please tell me how cooking an entire Julia Child cookbook will improve your life. Actually, don't, because that is the premise for this book and it sucked.
Oh, and reading about her husband was cringe-worthy. This wimp drinks vodka tonics, gets shaving tips from gq, and has regular, uncontrollable vomiting episodes. Hey guy, maybe when your balls finally descend from your body cavity you can write a book about that. Then both you and your wife can have lame books published.
For the sake of fair reviewing, I only made it through just over half of this before I became too repulsed to read on. So maybe it turns out awesome. Maybe she gets all the recipes cooked. Maybe her husband and her friends actually become interesting. I guess I'll never find out, because I know I'd derive ten times more entertainment from smelling my fingers than I would by finishing this book.
Oh, and reading about her husband was cringe-worthy. This wimp drinks vodka tonics, gets shaving tips from gq, and has regular, uncontrollable vomiting episodes. Hey guy, maybe when your balls finally descend from your body cavity you can write a book about that. Then both you and your wife can have lame books published.
For the sake of fair reviewing, I only made it through just over half of this before I became too repulsed to read on. So maybe it turns out awesome. Maybe she gets all the recipes cooked. Maybe her husband and her friends actually become interesting. I guess I'll never find out, because I know I'd derive ten times more entertainment from smelling my fingers than I would by finishing this book.
May 1, 2024
A DISTASTEFUL BOOK FROM AN OBNOXIOUS WOMAN WHO SHOULD BE OFFICIALLY BANNED FROM ANY KITCHEN INCLUDING HER OWN.
I saw the lovely film before reading the book (or trying to read it anyway) & I could not understand why Julia Child did not want to meet Julie Powell...
Now I know & agree completely: I would/do not want to meet her either.
Her / the book's only merit is her apparent honesty, though the fact that she thinks this kind of honesty is witty and hilarious as opposed to vulgar and cringeworthy rather diminishes it.
Leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
I saw the lovely film before reading the book (or trying to read it anyway) & I could not understand why Julia Child did not want to meet Julie Powell...
Now I know & agree completely: I would/do not want to meet her either.
Her / the book's only merit is her apparent honesty, though the fact that she thinks this kind of honesty is witty and hilarious as opposed to vulgar and cringeworthy rather diminishes it.
Leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
October 21, 2024
Someone might say that this is an inspiring book about finding purpose in life amid adversity. Someone might also say that the book is a beautiful homage to the joy and art of cooking. That someone may argue this novel demonstrates that it is through cooking and blogging that love, friendship and community is cultivated. This increasingly hypothetical someone would not be me.
October 2, 2007
There are some inspired moments in Julie Powell’s memoir of the year she spent cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Powell can be a very funny writer, and the book is sprinkled with abundant samples of the snarky wit that no doubt made the blog on which this book was based so popular. Her topic is certainly a rich one—the processes of making gelatin from actual calves’ feet or flaying a lobster alive while feeling a generous dose of liberal guilt certainly offer many opportunities for colorful commentary.
Despite Powell’s detail in discussing some of her greatest disasters while cooking from Childs’ book, she spends significantly less time on general food writing than you’d expect given the theme. This not so much a sensual celebration of food as it is the diary of a frustrated New York secretary who spent a year cooking like a madwoman. While some of Powell’s digressions away from her kitchen are entertaining, others seem widely off-topic and detract from the book’s focus.
Still, the book is generally pretty readable, though I did struggle at times with Powell’s tone. Her sharp sense of humor is not always enough to balance out her frequent griping as she struggles to complete her task while simultaneously working in a government office run by (gasp!) Republicans. While it was interesting to read how the popularity of her blog snowballed into national news coverage and a book deal, the book ultimately left me with little understanding of how the alchemy of the cooking process worked its magic on the author itself. Except, of course, for all the swearing it made her do.
Despite Powell’s detail in discussing some of her greatest disasters while cooking from Childs’ book, she spends significantly less time on general food writing than you’d expect given the theme. This not so much a sensual celebration of food as it is the diary of a frustrated New York secretary who spent a year cooking like a madwoman. While some of Powell’s digressions away from her kitchen are entertaining, others seem widely off-topic and detract from the book’s focus.
Still, the book is generally pretty readable, though I did struggle at times with Powell’s tone. Her sharp sense of humor is not always enough to balance out her frequent griping as she struggles to complete her task while simultaneously working in a government office run by (gasp!) Republicans. While it was interesting to read how the popularity of her blog snowballed into national news coverage and a book deal, the book ultimately left me with little understanding of how the alchemy of the cooking process worked its magic on the author itself. Except, of course, for all the swearing it made her do.
December 30, 2007
I think there's an unfortunate trend that people follow these days, particularly women, to verbally criticize themselves in a hyper self-aware manner, as if recounting all of their faults (real or imagined)will not only amuse the listener, but prove that they are stoic-even good humored-about being the biggest, fattest, ugliest, ding battiest failures to ever grace the earth.
"Doesn't he get it? Doesn't he understand that if I don't get through the whole book in a year then this whole thing will have been a waste, that I'm going to spiral into mediocrity and despair and probably wind up on the street trading blow jobs for crack or something? He hates me, anyway. Look at him, curled over on his side of the bed like he doesn't want to so much as touch me. It's because I've got the stink of failure on me. I'm doomed..."
Now I like a little self-deprecation every now and again, but this book is founded entirely on the author's insecurities, which are mostly unfounded. The books foundation is rocky to say the least. This is clearly a bright woman and obviously very few people think they are the most abhorrent human being alive or the mortality rate in our society would sky rocket, so why bother with all of the abuse? She doesn't need it-her prose are clever and deliberate, and all of this "I hate myself" crap really clouds what she is trying to say.
Perhaps it's because she based this book on her blog, which REALLY lends itself to this kind of meta humor, but I'm sooooo sick of it. Go read about fistula in Africa and then tell me how depressed you are because you're making your own life miserable. Bah!
"Doesn't he get it? Doesn't he understand that if I don't get through the whole book in a year then this whole thing will have been a waste, that I'm going to spiral into mediocrity and despair and probably wind up on the street trading blow jobs for crack or something? He hates me, anyway. Look at him, curled over on his side of the bed like he doesn't want to so much as touch me. It's because I've got the stink of failure on me. I'm doomed..."
Now I like a little self-deprecation every now and again, but this book is founded entirely on the author's insecurities, which are mostly unfounded. The books foundation is rocky to say the least. This is clearly a bright woman and obviously very few people think they are the most abhorrent human being alive or the mortality rate in our society would sky rocket, so why bother with all of the abuse? She doesn't need it-her prose are clever and deliberate, and all of this "I hate myself" crap really clouds what she is trying to say.
Perhaps it's because she based this book on her blog, which REALLY lends itself to this kind of meta humor, but I'm sooooo sick of it. Go read about fistula in Africa and then tell me how depressed you are because you're making your own life miserable. Bah!
May 12, 2008
The book is written by Julie Powell, about her 1 year self-imposed challenge to cook everything in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of Fine Cooking. The project was motivated by feeling stuck in her job (a low level drone in a government office) as well as rebellion towards the whole Alice Waters, locovore, trendy foodie things. I instantly connected with the author – she was a Buffy the Vampire fan (the blog was going on during the last season), found the act of preparing food very sensual, and was trying to figure out what to do next with her life. The book is very entertaining, mixing stories about Julie Child and stories of her own family in with the trials of cooking the recipes (including treks to find bone marrow, brains and other offal). Her husband Eric is portrayed as a saint, her friends are nuts. Its fun to read.
But what really struck me was not the challenge of cooking, but the blogging. In addition to cooking every recipe, she blogged about everything she cooked. I went on-line and looked at some of the blogs. She blogged almost every day, and not just “I checked Filets to Poisson en Souffle off the list, didn’t puff but tasted good”… no, she went into details about procuring the ingredients, the moods of her husband, her cats, occasional Buffy references, how the food was prepared, what worked, what tasted good, and what didn’t. And it was entertaining… she had a huge following (after a while, she set up a way people could donate money to help buy lamb and more butter to keep the project going – and they did). She never talks about the challenges of blogging in the book.. things I find really hard, like making it witty (but not contrived), not offending others (however, that New York thing probably helps here), how personal to get, making a good story but not going on and on, punctuation and grammar good enough to make it readable. It has a happy ending, she found her real calling as a writer.
But what really struck me was not the challenge of cooking, but the blogging. In addition to cooking every recipe, she blogged about everything she cooked. I went on-line and looked at some of the blogs. She blogged almost every day, and not just “I checked Filets to Poisson en Souffle off the list, didn’t puff but tasted good”… no, she went into details about procuring the ingredients, the moods of her husband, her cats, occasional Buffy references, how the food was prepared, what worked, what tasted good, and what didn’t. And it was entertaining… she had a huge following (after a while, she set up a way people could donate money to help buy lamb and more butter to keep the project going – and they did). She never talks about the challenges of blogging in the book.. things I find really hard, like making it witty (but not contrived), not offending others (however, that New York thing probably helps here), how personal to get, making a good story but not going on and on, punctuation and grammar good enough to make it readable. It has a happy ending, she found her real calling as a writer.
March 27, 2009
Julie disappointed me. Her tone was tired (I've rassled too many self-loathing Gen Xers who think that airing their dirty laundry is fresh and shocking; it's not; ever heard of reality TV? it's merely degrading; if it's dime-store therapy you're seeking via the blogosphere, good luck getting stable, coherent advice from your comments section). Additionally, she thought insulting her husband was funny, admitting to maggots under her dish drainer a good romp, and marital infidelity blase'. I have a hard time imagining how I would ever like her in person. I certainly don't in print.
By the end, though, when she finds out that Julia Child doesn't like her, I felt sorry for her. And she's not a total loss---she worships Buffy the Vampire Slayer *almost* as much as I do.
I get the impression that when she undertook the project Julie was a deeply depressed girl who was trying to lose herself in the details of the challenge. Frankly, it reminds me of Eat, Pray, Love in that regard. (Find yourself, eat great food, AND get a book deal out of it!) But she failed to evidence significant questioning or growth. Perhaps she was unprepared to vigorously grapple with the process. Perhaps she was too lazy. Perhaps her writing was too poor to convey overreaching change. But, then, what's the point of the book?
By the end, though, when she finds out that Julia Child doesn't like her, I felt sorry for her. And she's not a total loss---she worships Buffy the Vampire Slayer *almost* as much as I do.
I get the impression that when she undertook the project Julie was a deeply depressed girl who was trying to lose herself in the details of the challenge. Frankly, it reminds me of Eat, Pray, Love in that regard. (Find yourself, eat great food, AND get a book deal out of it!) But she failed to evidence significant questioning or growth. Perhaps she was unprepared to vigorously grapple with the process. Perhaps she was too lazy. Perhaps her writing was too poor to convey overreaching change. But, then, what's the point of the book?
January 23, 2024
I really can't remember how many times I've read this book, or how many times I've seen the movie. Does it need any more to recommend it? All I will say is some people love it and some people hate it. Not too hard to see which side I fall on.
May 31, 2021
3.5 Stars
This is one of those rare cases where the movie adaptation is actually better than the source material. The actual Julie Powell comes across as rather unlikeable in her memoir. I'd recommend sticking to the movie, unless you are really curious to see the true story.
This is one of those rare cases where the movie adaptation is actually better than the source material. The actual Julie Powell comes across as rather unlikeable in her memoir. I'd recommend sticking to the movie, unless you are really curious to see the true story.
July 21, 2020
"Julie & Julia" by Julie Powell was a surprisingly delightful read!
I debated getting this book based on the “hollywoodish” premise from the movie but it was nothing like what I thought it would be. First of all it was irreverent, a bit vulgar in parts and in spite of both of those it was delightful!! As I read through this book I laughed, cried and wished it was me on this heartfelt journey. I felt a bit like Julie because I too married my high school sweetheart and he would have done all the wonderful things for me that Eric did for Julie. Not to mention that I admire Julia Child and love what she has done for the love of cooking. I love cooking for my man, too!
Julie did not take on this challenge for anyone but herself. She didn’t know Julia but only admired her experiences as a women cooking in a “Man Chef World”. Julie did not even feel that Julia “liked” her for taking on the Julie/Julia Project. Julie carries on in spite of knowing this because she was a strong, determined woman and knew there could be a better “Julie” on the other side of her project journey. When Julie heard of Julia’s death she wrote one sentence on her blog that speaks to why she chose this journey:
“I have no claim over the woman at all, unless it’s the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the ocean.”
Thank you, Julie Powell for this beautiful book❤️
I debated getting this book based on the “hollywoodish” premise from the movie but it was nothing like what I thought it would be. First of all it was irreverent, a bit vulgar in parts and in spite of both of those it was delightful!! As I read through this book I laughed, cried and wished it was me on this heartfelt journey. I felt a bit like Julie because I too married my high school sweetheart and he would have done all the wonderful things for me that Eric did for Julie. Not to mention that I admire Julia Child and love what she has done for the love of cooking. I love cooking for my man, too!
Julie did not take on this challenge for anyone but herself. She didn’t know Julia but only admired her experiences as a women cooking in a “Man Chef World”. Julie did not even feel that Julia “liked” her for taking on the Julie/Julia Project. Julie carries on in spite of knowing this because she was a strong, determined woman and knew there could be a better “Julie” on the other side of her project journey. When Julie heard of Julia’s death she wrote one sentence on her blog that speaks to why she chose this journey:
“I have no claim over the woman at all, unless it’s the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the ocean.”
Thank you, Julie Powell for this beautiful book❤️
May 4, 2011
Julia was a goddess among women. Julie...not so much.
June 25, 2021
Há livros muito bons que são adaptados ao cinema e, quando os vemos, sentimos que sabem a pouco. Mesmo sendo bons filmes, alguns até muito bons, mas nunca tão bons como os livros: "As horas", "A casa dos espíritos", "Jane Eyre", a série "Millennium" (gostei sobretudo da versão sueca), as várias adaptações das obras de Jane Austen.
Depois há livros assim-assim que são adaptados ao cinema e dão filmes simpáticos, do tipo "pipoca" ou "de domingo". Nestes, muitas vezes são os actores que elevam as narrativas: "Comer, orar, amar" (livro que me aborreceu tanto de início que não o consegui continuar), e este, são disso exemplos.
Embora não tenha terminado 'Julie and Julia', considero-o lido, uma vez que não tenho intenções de voltar a pegar-lhe.
O livro trata da história de uma mulher que encontra um caminho que a torna feliz (embora às vezes não pareça, mas lá chegaremos...). O tema é bom, mas houve dois problemas principais que me fizeram parar de lê-lo:
1 - A linguagem vulgar.
2 - A falta da "magia da comida".
1 - Sofro de urticária crónica no que concerne a utilização de calão (sobretudo asneiras) nos livros. Chamem-me comichosa, mas não há volta a dar.
No caso concreto deste livro, não sei de onde vem o problema. Se é um problema de tradução; ou se é uma consequência da autora ter escrito o livro a partir do blog* que criou para o seu projecto: fazer todas as receitas do livro 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', de Julia Child, num ano; ou se é mesmo a forma de escrever (e falar!) de Julie Powell.
No entanto, tropeçar, em todas as páginas, num discurso pejado de palavras pouco literárias (isto não existe, mas foi a melhor forma que encontrei para o exprimir), incomoda-me, e, aparentemente, ao marido dela, também:
"- Porra! São onze da noite e estou-me a cagar para a merda do pão! - disse, enquanto os retirava e dispunha em dois pratos.
- Julie, a sério, tens de falar dessa maneira?" (p. 64)
Três palavras vulgares numa frase de catorze? Faço das dele, as minhas palavras.
Além disso, embora compreenda muito bem a frustração inerente a um falhanço culinário, enquanto lia, sentia que a pobre Julie estava permanentemente de mal com a vida porque não encontrava tutano ou os ovos lhe saíam mal...
Mas afinal, não era suposto que cozinhar lhe trouxesse prazer? Parece-me que a irritação constante manifestada ao longo do livro (pelo menos, das 110 páginas por mim lidas), ainda lhe vai causar uma úlcera. Já dizia o caríssimo Carlos Paião "refilar faz mal à vesícula".
Ou será que foi aquela pressão americana de atingir o sucesso/ser bem-sucedido que lhe minou o prazer do processo de cozinhar? Há uma cena no filme em que Julia Child está a cortar cebolas com uma rapidez (e perseverança) incrível. Ela é competitiva, quer ser a melhor num mundo de homens, quer ser reconhecida e respeitada, não aceita que lhe digam que não pode fazer algo, por ser mulher. Mas aquilo que Julia Child parece ter, que a Julie talvez não tenha, é essa capacidade de lutar por atingir o que deseja sem frustrar pelo caminho, e mantendo a sua elegância (nada de palavrões!).
*Mesmo num blog/facebook/outra coisa qualquer, parece-me uma linguagem demasiado vulgar...
2 - Carece da "magia da comida", que se encontra noutros livros, como "La cucina" e "Como água para chocolate". Nesses livros, imaginamos todo o ambiente à volta da comida, desde ir comprar os ingredientes, à sua preparação, confecção, aos cheiros e vapores na cozinha, e depois à sua degustação. Nesses livros, cozinhar e comer são prazeres. Há uma sensualidade em todo o processo. Neste livro, o que há, geralmente, é muita dificuldade a arranjar ingredientes pouco comuns na cozinha americana, muitos palavrões durante essas demandas, e claro que há o prazer do objectivo cumprido (algo muito americano) e também de saborear o produto final, mas soube-me a pouco. Falta a tal magia que Laura Esquivel e Lily Prior conseguem transmitir e que me fazem querer voar para a cozinha... Eu adoro comer, e também cozinhar, se o livro tivesse um pouco mais "disto", talvez tivesse conseguido ultrapassar a questão da linguagem, e tivesse conseguido lê-lo até ao fim.
Depois há livros assim-assim que são adaptados ao cinema e dão filmes simpáticos, do tipo "pipoca" ou "de domingo". Nestes, muitas vezes são os actores que elevam as narrativas: "Comer, orar, amar" (livro que me aborreceu tanto de início que não o consegui continuar), e este, são disso exemplos.
Embora não tenha terminado 'Julie and Julia', considero-o lido, uma vez que não tenho intenções de voltar a pegar-lhe.
O livro trata da história de uma mulher que encontra um caminho que a torna feliz (embora às vezes não pareça, mas lá chegaremos...). O tema é bom, mas houve dois problemas principais que me fizeram parar de lê-lo:
1 - A linguagem vulgar.
2 - A falta da "magia da comida".
1 - Sofro de urticária crónica no que concerne a utilização de calão (sobretudo asneiras) nos livros. Chamem-me comichosa, mas não há volta a dar.
No caso concreto deste livro, não sei de onde vem o problema. Se é um problema de tradução; ou se é uma consequência da autora ter escrito o livro a partir do blog* que criou para o seu projecto: fazer todas as receitas do livro 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', de Julia Child, num ano; ou se é mesmo a forma de escrever (e falar!) de Julie Powell.
No entanto, tropeçar, em todas as páginas, num discurso pejado de palavras pouco literárias (isto não existe, mas foi a melhor forma que encontrei para o exprimir), incomoda-me, e, aparentemente, ao marido dela, também:
"- Porra! São onze da noite e estou-me a cagar para a merda do pão! - disse, enquanto os retirava e dispunha em dois pratos.
- Julie, a sério, tens de falar dessa maneira?" (p. 64)
Três palavras vulgares numa frase de catorze? Faço das dele, as minhas palavras.
Além disso, embora compreenda muito bem a frustração inerente a um falhanço culinário, enquanto lia, sentia que a pobre Julie estava permanentemente de mal com a vida porque não encontrava tutano ou os ovos lhe saíam mal...
Mas afinal, não era suposto que cozinhar lhe trouxesse prazer? Parece-me que a irritação constante manifestada ao longo do livro (pelo menos, das 110 páginas por mim lidas), ainda lhe vai causar uma úlcera. Já dizia o caríssimo Carlos Paião "refilar faz mal à vesícula".
Ou será que foi aquela pressão americana de atingir o sucesso/ser bem-sucedido que lhe minou o prazer do processo de cozinhar? Há uma cena no filme em que Julia Child está a cortar cebolas com uma rapidez (e perseverança) incrível. Ela é competitiva, quer ser a melhor num mundo de homens, quer ser reconhecida e respeitada, não aceita que lhe digam que não pode fazer algo, por ser mulher. Mas aquilo que Julia Child parece ter, que a Julie talvez não tenha, é essa capacidade de lutar por atingir o que deseja sem frustrar pelo caminho, e mantendo a sua elegância (nada de palavrões!).
*Mesmo num blog/facebook/outra coisa qualquer, parece-me uma linguagem demasiado vulgar...
2 - Carece da "magia da comida", que se encontra noutros livros, como "La cucina" e "Como água para chocolate". Nesses livros, imaginamos todo o ambiente à volta da comida, desde ir comprar os ingredientes, à sua preparação, confecção, aos cheiros e vapores na cozinha, e depois à sua degustação. Nesses livros, cozinhar e comer são prazeres. Há uma sensualidade em todo o processo. Neste livro, o que há, geralmente, é muita dificuldade a arranjar ingredientes pouco comuns na cozinha americana, muitos palavrões durante essas demandas, e claro que há o prazer do objectivo cumprido (algo muito americano) e também de saborear o produto final, mas soube-me a pouco. Falta a tal magia que Laura Esquivel e Lily Prior conseguem transmitir e que me fazem querer voar para a cozinha... Eu adoro comer, e também cozinhar, se o livro tivesse um pouco mais "disto", talvez tivesse conseguido ultrapassar a questão da linguagem, e tivesse conseguido lê-lo até ao fim.
January 31, 2021
My review of Julie & Julia can be found in full on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
I liked it. Sure, Powell’s snarky sense of humour and tendency towards histrionics won’t be to everyone’s taste, but what is? Julie And Julia is a good, quick read that – if you’re anything like me – will inspire you to pick up the tongs instead of ordering UberEats for the fourth night in a row. If it doesn’t sound like it’s up your alley, that’s fine, because I’m going to share with you the single most important take-away of the whole book: put more butter in everything. Seriously. That pat of butter you normally use? Double it.
I liked it. Sure, Powell’s snarky sense of humour and tendency towards histrionics won’t be to everyone’s taste, but what is? Julie And Julia is a good, quick read that – if you’re anything like me – will inspire you to pick up the tongs instead of ordering UberEats for the fourth night in a row. If it doesn’t sound like it’s up your alley, that’s fine, because I’m going to share with you the single most important take-away of the whole book: put more butter in everything. Seriously. That pat of butter you normally use? Double it.
February 13, 2011
Saw the movie - had to read the book. So far, I have my reservations, but I'm not very far in yet.
I read a few more chapters and gave up. The author rambles - and not in a good way. I could not work up any interest in the folks in the book - just didn't care what they did next. Combine that with the author's potty mouth, and it's back to the Library to find a book worth reading - maybe Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.
This is one of those rare examples of the movie being a lot better than the book.
I read a few more chapters and gave up. The author rambles - and not in a good way. I could not work up any interest in the folks in the book - just didn't care what they did next. Combine that with the author's potty mouth, and it's back to the Library to find a book worth reading - maybe Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.
This is one of those rare examples of the movie being a lot better than the book.
August 19, 2009
I must've really needed this kind of book right about now. I bought it about a year ago when I saw it on the B&N clearance table, but then shelved it. I've actually been hearing a lot about it lately (I'm sure because of the upcoming film), so I figured I'd give it a shot.
I loved this. I really couldn't put it down. Reading through the author's experiences as she cooks through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking reminded me of how delicious and sometimes therapeutic cooking a home-made meal from scratch can be. Though honestly, I can never imagine myself boning a duck, cutting apart and boiling a live lobster, extracting bone marrow, or making a gelee' out of calves' hooves (WTF?)
I could relate to Julie Powell's story, in a way. Though I'm *coughcoughoverthirtycoughcough*, I could sympathize with her being kind of stuck in a dead-end, crappy job. But hey, I've got kids, you sometimes gotta do what you gotta do, right?
Favorite quote:
"Oh, God. It really was true, wasn't it? I really was a secretary."
I'm almost embarrassed to say that this book inspired me. Did you know Julia Child didn't even learn to cook until she was 37? I had no clue. It kind of showed me it's never too late to really find your passion, and do what you love to do. God, just typing that makes me feel so lame that I got that much out of this book, when a lot of the time, I'm admittedly pretty snarky...which leads me to another cool quote:
"...hard-bitten cynicism leaves one feeling peevish, and too much of it can do lasting damage to your heart."
I loved this. I really couldn't put it down. Reading through the author's experiences as she cooks through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking reminded me of how delicious and sometimes therapeutic cooking a home-made meal from scratch can be. Though honestly, I can never imagine myself boning a duck, cutting apart and boiling a live lobster, extracting bone marrow, or making a gelee' out of calves' hooves (WTF?)
I could relate to Julie Powell's story, in a way. Though I'm *coughcoughoverthirtycoughcough*, I could sympathize with her being kind of stuck in a dead-end, crappy job. But hey, I've got kids, you sometimes gotta do what you gotta do, right?
Favorite quote:
"Oh, God. It really was true, wasn't it? I really was a secretary."
I'm almost embarrassed to say that this book inspired me. Did you know Julia Child didn't even learn to cook until she was 37? I had no clue. It kind of showed me it's never too late to really find your passion, and do what you love to do. God, just typing that makes me feel so lame that I got that much out of this book, when a lot of the time, I'm admittedly pretty snarky...which leads me to another cool quote:
"...hard-bitten cynicism leaves one feeling peevish, and too much of it can do lasting damage to your heart."
February 20, 2008
I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I love the concept- the story of the author working her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking one recipe at a time, skipping nothing. At its root it's a true life adventure- something I can experience vicariously.
On the other hand, sometimes the execution is flawed. (I *really* didn't want to know about the maggot infestation in the author's kitchen, I know my kitchen isn't perfectly hygenic. But maggots under the dish drainer? Ewww eww eww!) As the book wears on, the story becomes less and less about the cooking and more and more about the how much the author hates her government job and her small apartment, the plumbing catastrophes that regularly happein in said apartment and the cast of kooky friends that drop in regularly.
Knowing that the book started out as a blog makes the prose a little more forgivable. Although the book is NOT written in "blog form", I can see where the narrative would have worked well when it was a blog. It's obvious the author felt the need to pad the story a bit to make it in full-length book, which I don't think was totally necessary. The filler it just that- filler.
The author supposedly had a multi book deal now. The problem is that I don't know if I would ever read another book by her. Maybe if she came up with another great concept.
On the other hand, sometimes the execution is flawed. (I *really* didn't want to know about the maggot infestation in the author's kitchen, I know my kitchen isn't perfectly hygenic. But maggots under the dish drainer? Ewww eww eww!) As the book wears on, the story becomes less and less about the cooking and more and more about the how much the author hates her government job and her small apartment, the plumbing catastrophes that regularly happein in said apartment and the cast of kooky friends that drop in regularly.
Knowing that the book started out as a blog makes the prose a little more forgivable. Although the book is NOT written in "blog form", I can see where the narrative would have worked well when it was a blog. It's obvious the author felt the need to pad the story a bit to make it in full-length book, which I don't think was totally necessary. The filler it just that- filler.
The author supposedly had a multi book deal now. The problem is that I don't know if I would ever read another book by her. Maybe if she came up with another great concept.
June 2, 2008
In order to give her life some definition,(and blinders to the onset of her 30th birthday) Julie Powell decides to cook every recipe from Julia Child's, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume One, within one year. She cooks everything from tarts to cow brains in her tiny New York apartment. The book reminded me of Bridget Jones meets, well, Julia Child. It is funny, interesting, and a little inspirational. She is candid with her personal life as well as with the results of what became the Julie/Julia project (all documented on Blog of course). I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking to change the small stuff of their life, but always puts it on a to-do list. Beyond her humor, love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and blogging obsession I admire the simplicity of her choice. As she explains (and demonstrates) in the book, simplicity does not equate easy. I am astounded with the magnitude of the response her project generated, and the impact it made on others. I am so glad I read this book! I felt like running out to buy copies for everyone I know as soon as I was finished reading. Just wonderful! (Written Thursday Jan. 24, 2008)
December 26, 2019
One of those books when movie is like thousands of times better. Not that much cooking, loads of pointless swearing and sex. She is just egocentric disrespectful sad woman. I wonder how she was not fired while badmouthing her bosses in government paid job everyday in her blog. No wonder that real Julia Child wanted to do nothing with her.
Book was read by the Powell herself which was not good at all. It made the main character even more unsympathetic
Do not recommend reading or listening to it,better watch a movie one more time
Book was read by the Powell herself which was not good at all. It made the main character even more unsympathetic
Do not recommend reading or listening to it,better watch a movie one more time
August 20, 2020
What a disapointment. I thought it would be a fun read, someone working through a life crisis by cooking their way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1, but I threw the book in the trash after reading the first few chapters and thumbing through the rest. The profanity, baseness and the f-bombs are inappropriate and don't add anything to the content.
March 29, 2023
Years ago, I watched "Julie and Julia" (the movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams) and loved it. This is one of the three books that the movie was based upon. It is all about Julie Powell's efforts to cook the legendary Julia Child's recipes and the blog she authored.
Julie wrote with snarky, self-depreciating humor about her year of trying to master Julia Child's recipes. She was thirty years old, married to her high school sweetheart (Eric) and working as a secretary for a government agency in a job she disliked. They lived in a loft apartment in an outer borough of NYC, (think old, cramped and uncomfortable). Along with cooking, Julie began blogging about her culinary adventures. This was during the early days of blogging. Julie's blog posts were funny, sometimes outrageous and often profane.
As it turned out, French cooking is not just about delicate souffles and sauces. Julie learned how to cook live lobsters, calves' brains and kidneys, and make aspic from calves' hooves. Julie gamely tried it all.
My reactions: I enjoyed the first half of the book better than the last half, due to Julie's antics becoming repetitious. Perhaps, Julie's blog posts were more exciting to read in real time. I liked the movie much better. In the film, Julie's rough edges were softened. Perhaps, it's time to see it again.
Julie wrote with snarky, self-depreciating humor about her year of trying to master Julia Child's recipes. She was thirty years old, married to her high school sweetheart (Eric) and working as a secretary for a government agency in a job she disliked. They lived in a loft apartment in an outer borough of NYC, (think old, cramped and uncomfortable). Along with cooking, Julie began blogging about her culinary adventures. This was during the early days of blogging. Julie's blog posts were funny, sometimes outrageous and often profane.
As it turned out, French cooking is not just about delicate souffles and sauces. Julie learned how to cook live lobsters, calves' brains and kidneys, and make aspic from calves' hooves. Julie gamely tried it all.
My reactions: I enjoyed the first half of the book better than the last half, due to Julie's antics becoming repetitious. Perhaps, Julie's blog posts were more exciting to read in real time. I liked the movie much better. In the film, Julie's rough edges were softened. Perhaps, it's time to see it again.
June 30, 2017
I wanted to like this but Julie Powell just wouldn't let me. Her constant whining and neurotic, self-absorbed personality so grated on me that they undermined the aspects of the book that did appeal to me: cooking and humor. I don't even want to see the movie after reading this, although I do still want to read My Life in France.
May 30, 2022
Julie Powell was a 29 year-old temp living in the outer boroughs and suffering from late-20s ennui and the kind of despair that comes from hating your career and thinking you should have done more with yourself by now. To give herself a goal - something I can very much sympathize with - she decided she would make all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. She also started a blog to chronicle her (mis)adventures. This book is an outgrowth of that experience.
From the start I saw some crazy parallels to a book that I, well, do not like - Eat Pray Love. Turns out, Liz Gilbert was actually a mentor and reviewer of Powell's book. Both are white, middle-class women who can turn a phrase who decided to add meaning to their chaotic lives by creating wildly over-structured plans of action.
On the one hand, Julie Powell is probably more likeable than Liz - more honest in her self-deprecation, and more charming in her witty cynicism. Point for Julie.
On the other hand, Julie's book structure did not work as well as Liz's. The book read a lot like a blog that had been sloppily edited into a book.
I appreciated Julie's honesty about her temper, her relationship with her husband, and her struggles with despair - she came off, to me, as a sympathetic protagonist. But on the other hand, her honesty tended to feel overboard and often, added for shock value. I could give a f*** about her potty mouth, but I would have loved to have been spared the details about her absolutely filthy apartment and questionable sanitary habits, for example.
Probably the biggest problem with the book is that it was marketed as a book about cooking, when in fact it was just a relatively shallow autobiography with few larger lessons or takeaway points. It was an average, semi-well-spoken woman's memoir as she approaches the age of 30. I know about 100 ennui-suffering, confused, smart, well-spoken gals hovering around the 30-range; why am I reading Julie Powell's story and not theirs?
I would imagine, moreover, that the foodies who picked up this book were PISSED about the lack of attention given to the cooking process and the food, and about the over-attention given to Julie's feelings, mood swings, and tendency toward TMI.
From the start I saw some crazy parallels to a book that I, well, do not like - Eat Pray Love. Turns out, Liz Gilbert was actually a mentor and reviewer of Powell's book. Both are white, middle-class women who can turn a phrase who decided to add meaning to their chaotic lives by creating wildly over-structured plans of action.
On the one hand, Julie Powell is probably more likeable than Liz - more honest in her self-deprecation, and more charming in her witty cynicism. Point for Julie.
On the other hand, Julie's book structure did not work as well as Liz's. The book read a lot like a blog that had been sloppily edited into a book.
I appreciated Julie's honesty about her temper, her relationship with her husband, and her struggles with despair - she came off, to me, as a sympathetic protagonist. But on the other hand, her honesty tended to feel overboard and often, added for shock value. I could give a f*** about her potty mouth, but I would have loved to have been spared the details about her absolutely filthy apartment and questionable sanitary habits, for example.
Probably the biggest problem with the book is that it was marketed as a book about cooking, when in fact it was just a relatively shallow autobiography with few larger lessons or takeaway points. It was an average, semi-well-spoken woman's memoir as she approaches the age of 30. I know about 100 ennui-suffering, confused, smart, well-spoken gals hovering around the 30-range; why am I reading Julie Powell's story and not theirs?
I would imagine, moreover, that the foodies who picked up this book were PISSED about the lack of attention given to the cooking process and the food, and about the over-attention given to Julie's feelings, mood swings, and tendency toward TMI.
February 17, 2017
I have wanted to see the movie, Julie and Julia since it was released. I have not yet seen it. To be honest I had no idea what the movie was even about except for the fact it was in some way about Julia Child. I have adored Julia Child for a very long time so this is why I was drawn to the movie trailer. I am a red seal chef so there is another attraction right there. This book, I was not aware even existed till a few weeks ago. So I guess all can see the connection I would quite obviously have to this book also.
Having said all of that, I may never see the movie now, I don't really need to. This is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. Over the twenty-five years of my life spent as a practicing chef I have encountered some of the weirdest and strangest and completely bizarre things one could imagine so I was fully able to relate to all of the authors ups and downs throughout. I have a much better appreciation of the trials and tribulations of the task set forth in the premise here. The way the author describes how it is she works through some of those cooking faux pas's is hilarious. To say I can relate doesn't quite sum it up, but you get my meaning.
It comes across to me that there was some sort of weird symbiosis between the author herself and Miss Child even though the two of them have never met. It was as if they could read each others thoughts in a way. I do talk to recipes as if I am talking to the person that penned it, so it was refreshing to see I was not the only one!
One does not need to know how to cook to find this book a real gem of a read. Well written, funny and just a nice release from the daily grind. Highly recommended.
Having said all of that, I may never see the movie now, I don't really need to. This is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. Over the twenty-five years of my life spent as a practicing chef I have encountered some of the weirdest and strangest and completely bizarre things one could imagine so I was fully able to relate to all of the authors ups and downs throughout. I have a much better appreciation of the trials and tribulations of the task set forth in the premise here. The way the author describes how it is she works through some of those cooking faux pas's is hilarious. To say I can relate doesn't quite sum it up, but you get my meaning.
It comes across to me that there was some sort of weird symbiosis between the author herself and Miss Child even though the two of them have never met. It was as if they could read each others thoughts in a way. I do talk to recipes as if I am talking to the person that penned it, so it was refreshing to see I was not the only one!
One does not need to know how to cook to find this book a real gem of a read. Well written, funny and just a nice release from the daily grind. Highly recommended.
July 27, 2007
To me this is a book about finding sanity in structure. Julie doesn't know what to do with her life, so she manufactures a project...
By completing at least one new recipe a day, and blogging about it, she finds herself so consumed that she has little time to obsess about her dead-end job, and her possible infertility.
It reminds me a lot of "Rosemary Goes to the Mall," a podcast in which an art instructor makes a project of shopping from and getting a bag from every store in the Mall of America...
A pretty good read... a little embarrassing in the way that I can understand and identify with Julie. She says fuck a lot. She is sarcastic, sometimes mean...her husband is incredibly supportive, as are her friends...
It is a reflection of "us" - my friends, my urban age group...
By completing at least one new recipe a day, and blogging about it, she finds herself so consumed that she has little time to obsess about her dead-end job, and her possible infertility.
It reminds me a lot of "Rosemary Goes to the Mall," a podcast in which an art instructor makes a project of shopping from and getting a bag from every store in the Mall of America...
A pretty good read... a little embarrassing in the way that I can understand and identify with Julie. She says fuck a lot. She is sarcastic, sometimes mean...her husband is incredibly supportive, as are her friends...
It is a reflection of "us" - my friends, my urban age group...
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