Another Book

I'd like to recommend Brookly Follies by Paul Auster. My neighber's book group read and enjoyed this one.
Joan

Another book to consider.

I'm really looking forward to our visit to Jack London Park. I'll see you all on Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Glen Market. Just as Jack London loved Sonoma, in particular the beautiful Valley of the Moon, so many have come to love Beauty Ranch. I am so thankful it was preserved for us to visit.

On another note, my Sonoma book club is reading Infidel, the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose journey from Somalia to the Dutch Parliament is fascinating. You may want to consider this book for the next list. It could start us a theme -- religion and women.

See you Sunday!
Sue

"Sabrina" - a Movie Related to Julie and Julia

For those of us who just can't get quite enough of cooking, there's the 1954 romantic comedy, "Sabrina." The tie-in to Julie and Julia is that Sabrina goes to France to study at Le Cordon Bleu (where Julia Child learned the art of French cooking).


Click here to read more about the movie on the Internet Movie Database website.


(Image may be protected by copyright.)

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!

Julia and Elaine!

Joyce passes along this personal photo, taken at a 1992 American Institute of Food and Wine event.

From the left: Julia Child, Joyce's sister Elaine, and a important representative from the Nestle company.

Julia was 80 years old, and not well.

More From Our Favorite Chef

Joyce has uncovered a recent book (2006) My Life in France, written in part by Julia, an finished by her grandnephew, journalist Alex Prud'homme. In the introduction Julia says, "This is a book about some of the things I have loved most in life: my husband, Paul Child; la belle France; and the many pleasures of cooking and eating."

Amazon.com says:
"Julia Child single handedly awakened America to the pleasures of good cooking with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she didn't know the first thing about cooking when she landed in France.

Indeed, when she first arrived in 1948 with her husband, Paul, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever. Julia's unforgettable story unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a cook and teacher and writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years."

Here is also a link to the NY Times review of the book. The article begins:

"READ no further if you dislike France, consider the French irritating, find French cooking pretentious and the French art de vivre overrated — because Julia Child liked everything about France. And her memoir, "My Life in France," is an affectionate merci for all that France gave her."

here is a link to the oprah site where she has an interview with julie powell. http://tiny.cc/wn7HM