I have just burned a hole in my pocket to buy two books which I will probably be referencing a lot in the upcoming year. The first is the Prima game guide to Spore, but to paraphrase my patron saint, A.B., "That's another blog."
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The other is the official book written by the woman depicted - Julie Powell. If you don't know who this girl is, you obviously had your head stuck in the sand like an ostrich for the past year because you don't know anything about the movie made about this amazing woman. The film's title is "Julie and Julia", and the book is also called that.
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A brief summary - the movie juxtaposes two true stories. The first is the life story of Julia Child during her years in Paris and her creation of her famous cookbook, and if you don't know who THAT is, you are a zombie, because that very cookbook influenced the history of cookery instruction, making it evolve the art of preparing the most basic need of all living things, both plant and animal - aka FOOD - from a primordial sludge of slavery to the eat-out, take-out, processed food Overlords into the land of simple culinary creation.
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In the words that Julia Child(played by Meryl Streep, a very talented actress and the one who could pull off the Goddess of Fine Cuisine look almost perfectly) said in the movie, "home cooking for those servantless Americans."
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The other true story occurs over 50 years later, in Queens, New York. The protagonist, Julie Powell(coincidence that the first names are so much alike?), struggling with her failure to produce a novel and working in a dead-end job to make ends meet, gets exposed to the world of blogging and she decides to one-up her workmate by doing her own blog. After talking it over with her husband, he suggests doing a foodie blog.
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Yes, a foodie blog like this very one.
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Julie then gets touched by inspiration and decides to take a stolen copy of Julia Child's famous cookbook, The Mastery of French Cooking, and dedicate an entire blog to it, updating every night after she cooks a recipe or two. Considering that the book had 524 recipes in it and a year only has 365 days, that is a LOT of work.
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So, the entire movie follows both women's lives during those events and the hardships and celebrations that came with those periods of time. I won't spoil the whole thing for those who have not seen the movie yet.
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WARNING: If you intend to rush to your local movie theater after reading this, be warned - it is NOT a good idea to have your kids join you, especially younguns. There is a bit of saltiness in the movie, and I don't mean the food being seasoned, if you get my drift. There is also a bit of "bed action", but it's not too explicit. Remember to check a movie's rating before you take your kids.
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I almost missed this until an episode of the Next Food Network Star(which I talk about in Starlight Haven - from now on all future seasons of that show will be discussed here) had the finalists watch the movie before their challenge.
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So, I spent $20 of my hard-earned bucks from feeding and watering my dad's unruly goats to buy a ticket, a medium(I think the theater I go to mistakes medium for large) and soda to enjoy during the movie(I should have stuck with my gum) and got there mid-way through the trailers - I took a shower and ran a bit late, and the trip to the theater was long.
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Needless to say, I would have never bought the book had I not seen this movie. Now for some info I want to share with you who are reading(I am almost tempted to do what Julie did in her blog and type "Is anyone reading this?" but I don't like to be a whiner - I know people do read this blog, but don't comment):
- Julie and I have a lot in common - we both have Attention Defiicieny Disorder(well, I have ADHD, which is a more serious form of ADD), we both like to cook and experiment with food after a hard day, and we both havebeen struggling with our lives.
- I intend to read a part of each chapter and talk about it in this blog in a segment of posts which I haven't thought up the name of yet. I want to spread this out over a series of months and not read it all at once, and I won't start until the movie experience is sufficiently muted, probably Tuesday or Wendsday.
- Finally, Iwant to state that, even though I was born in the wrong time, way after Julia Child's shows had aired, I think she is to be respected. Without her, we wouldn't even HAVE a Food Network! Okay, maybe that's not true - there might have been other chefs doing shows of their own(the first cooking show I was this New Orleans chef's show) - but without Julia, we probably wouldn't have as many cookbooks, celebrated chefs, or cooking shows as we do today. She opened up the way to culinary art by de-mystifying French cuisine. Rest in peace, Mrs. Child, we will never forget you.
