Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
There’s a certain type of people who believe that a New York address and having done something attention-grabbing and arduous is the only necessary prerequisite for writing a memoir. However, other memoirs have taught me these traits do not automatically instill the necessary writing ability to produce a decent memoir. So, my expectations were low. However, I found Julie and Julia unexpectedly charming.
Part of what I enjoyed about this memoir was Julie’s honesty and humility about her project and its varied success. Who hasn’t tried to create something from a recipe, only to have horrid and (in retrospect) hilarious results? Reading of her mishaps with pastry dough made me remember certain pizza episodes in my own house, which culminated in using a broom handle to knock the fire alarm into silence. Who hasn’t had pangs of self-doubt/guilt when ones culinary and housekeeping efforts produce results which are questionable at best? I didn’t read her blog, but now I kind of wish I had. I would have found some kinship there.
The other thing which struck me about this novel was something Julie said at the end, where “her Julia” was a different woman that other peoples’ Julias. She had an image of Julia in her head which belonged to her alone. This book has a different feel for me than it might for other people, because at some point I realized that Julie and I are not only the same age, but we had similar life paths. When she was doing this project, she was half a decade into a marriage, turning thirty soon, and wanting to undergo something to counterbalance her low-status and somewhat dull job. In 2002, I was half a decade into a marriage, turning thirty soon, and wanting to have a project to counterbalance my low-status and somewhat dull job (caring for my babies). Julie’s blog led to fame and a book contract and a movie deal, and the novels I wrote that year, alas, have not yet garnered me fame and fortune.*
The memoir does not read as though it were just a compilation of blog posts. She interspaces the descriptions of writing the blog with descriptions of the recipes and anecdotes about her friends, all of whom seem quite delightful and interesting people. Julie feels like the sort of woman I’d be fast friends with, which helps mitigate slightly the envy that her success inspires in me.
One drawback of the book, and I’m not sure it’s really a drawback, is that reading this does not inspire me at all to cook French food. Maybe it was how she described it, or maybe French food as Julia Child described it really is a bunch of slaughterhouse sweepings and old vegetables at which you throw butter and cream. Even the desserts didn’t seem tasty, and I’m a big one for food porn. Something about the way she described the cooking made each meal feel like a horrible, get-me-a-shot-of-tequila, I-hate-the-world cooking experience, like Thanksgiving, rather than a “this is fun and I’m creating something” cooking experience, like every other meal of the year. Because I love food, and I love to cook, and it rarely seems as difficult or as un-fun as Julie makes it sound. (Except for the aforementioned Thanksgiving, a wretched holiday with which I have Issues.)
I recommend this book who like quirky women and want to get to know Julie Powell, as she seems like a very likeable woman. I also recommend it for people who hate to cook. I don’t recommend it for people who are into food porn, because it did not hit me gustatorially at all, and the description of the four day (at room temperature!) marinated lamb made me a bit queasy, not to mention the things they found under the dish drainer.
* You can change that. http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Things-Seab…
