Paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published Sept. 7, 2006 by Back Bay Books.
Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy, but as she moves from simple potato soup into more complicated realms, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art than meets the eye. She haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She 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 eclipsed her life's ordinariness through humor, hysteria, and perseverance.--From publisher …
Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy, but as she moves from simple potato soup into more complicated realms, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art than meets the eye. She haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She 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 eclipsed her life's ordinariness through humor, hysteria, and perseverance.--From publisher description.
I enjoyed this, and now I'm curious to see the movie version. Twenty-nine year old woman questions her life, and finds purpose in a mad project to make every recipe in 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' in one year, and blogging about it. I didn't find her a particularly sympathetic narrator, so I guess I must give her credit for honesty. I did enjoy following the madness.
Deep sigh. I loved the movie, and loved [b:My Life in France|5084|My Life in France|Julia Child|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165517460s/5084.jpg|1602216]... but I felt saddened by Julie & Julia. All I sensed was desperation, frustration at a life that doesn't have to be that way. Powell is searching, sometimes angrily and even nastily, and I wonder how her life has been after the end of her Project (the year of Julia Child). There seems to be some bitterness in Ms Powell, and it comes out too much in her book. I feel sorry for her, and sorry to have read her book: it's TMI, more than I needed to know.
If you enjoyed the film, please consider relishing those memories: skip the book.
