The Original Julie/Julia Project Blog

I was curious to read the original blog that Julie Powell wrote during her year of cooking in her "crappy outer-borough kitchen."

Here is the link to her blog: http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html

Her very first post is repeated verbatim in the book (page 26). There are an amazing 289 comments (!). People are continuing to comment now, and some write to congratulate her, but others are frankly critical. For example, here's a new comment from August, 2009:

"I loved the movie. Amy Adams portrays you as a fun loving valiant person who seems to have this great goal. Too bad that isn't the case. I started to read your blog and could understand why Julia Child was not impressed. Your mission was just to finish. Anyone can finish. Too bad you did not take it a step further and try to also master. Goodluck in the future."

Anyway, here are copies of the first and last posts that Julie wrote in the original blog:

The Julie/Julia Project

Nobody here but us servantless American cooks...  
 


Sunday, August 25, 2002
The Book:
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking". First edition, 1961. Louisette Berthole. Simone Beck. And, of course, Julia Child. The book that launched a thousand celebrity chefs. Julia Child taught America to cook, and to eat. It’s forty years later.  Today we think we live in the world Alice Waters made, but beneath it all is Julia, 90 if she's a day, and no one can touch her.
The Contender:
Government drone by day, renegade foodie by night. Too old for theatre, too young for children, and too bitter for anything else, Julie Powell was looking for a challenge. And in the Julie/Julia project she found it. Risking her marriage, her job, and her cats’ well-being, she has signed on for a deranged assignment.
365 days. 536 recipes. One girl and a crappy outer borough kitchen.
How far will it go? We can only wait. And wait. And wait…..
The Julie/Julia Project. Coming soon to a computer terminal near you."

And, here is the original blog's last post:

Friday, August 13, 2004

" I don’t know what to say.


Julia Child was ninety-one years old when she died, late yesterday, in
her sleep.  It’s the death that all of us want, after a life so full it
would seem she was one of history’s true lucky souls, if only luck had
had anything to do with it.  She enriched the lives of thousands – my
life she quite literally turned around.  She died well-loved, and I
hope she died well-fed.  There is no tragedy here.  It’s a day for
remembrance, and celebration.
   
So why am I so fucking sad?"

It's so interesting to see the primary source documents - the original blog - and compare it to Julie's book! HOWEVER, I am greatly disappointed salon.com as a blogging host, because although I stumbled on a way to get to the last post, I cannot navigate to any of the entries between October, 2002 through August, 2004.   If anyone figures out how to do this, please let me know!