Borrowed the DVD of this a week or so ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, let me qualify that statement - I enjoyed the part in which Meryl Streep played Julia Childs, the American cook about whom I knew zilch but decided to explore further and I purchased the book, Julie and Julia, My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell, on which the film was based. I also bought a copy of My life in France by Julia Child, a misnomer really as she not only lived in France, but also Germany and Norway before coming home to the States.
Julia was a lady bursting with love of life and a huge personality. She was also over 6 foot tall in her stockinged feet but did not seem to let this little matter get in her way. She married her husband Paul and arrived with him in Paris in 1948, not knowing a word of French and
nothing about cooking. 'What's a shallot?' she asked her husband. She fell in love with French culture, buying food at the market, sampling the local cuisine and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu. I absolutely loved this book - impossible not to be infected with Julia's enthusiasm and joy of life, her optimism and the wonderful portrait of post war Paris which sounds, in spite of cold and lack of money, to be vivid and full of charm.
Glad I read this first - I then turned to the Julie Powell book. Oh my gosh what a whiner, what a misery, what a self obsessed ghastly woman, how her husband didn't slap her or throw her out I do not know. A failed actress, there is some doubt that she could act at all, Julie was temping in a job she hated and she is miserable. Boy, do we know she is miserable.....
She decided, for some reason totally unexplained that she would try and cook a recipe a day for a year from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Childs. Now, we are told how badly off they are, how hard she slaves to pay the bills so to me, deciding to cook a French recipe a day from a book awash with lobsters, salmon, double cream, butter and wine seems a tad reckless but there you go. We all know that she decided to blog about it and that she built up this huge following and had thousands of hits and turned it into a book blah blah blah and while I should sit back and admire, all I feel is a profound sense of irritation. Why? I think it is the writing style. She is trying so hard to be laid back, to be sooo New Yorkish, hip and edgy and one gets the feeling that as each chapter was written the author read it and thought Wow how cool is this! OK I am probably being a snotty cow here but that was just the way it struck me.
Then she finds out that Julia Childs is not that enamoured of this upstart who has high jacked her fame:
"Maybe she thinks I am taking advantage or something" I was taken by surprise by a sudden burst of tears. And then I was wailing. Everyone was shocked and then Eric was pulling me down to his chest and Gwen and Sally were fluttering down on either side of me in that ruffling feathers way of best friends. As they clucked over me I cried as if my heart would break.......and it wasn't just about what Julia thought or didn't think about me and it wasn't about dough that was crumbly or aspic that didn't set or a job that didn't make me happy and then until, eventually it wasn't even about being sad" (OK so what was it about then?)
"So what did you say to the reporter who told you about Julia?" "I said Fuck her" I crack myself up sometimes, I really do..."
Class oozing out of every pore you have to admit. No matter that Julia Childs was 91 when this little scene took place and probably didn't understand what this whole thing was all about...'Fuck her' was the reaction.
By the time I got to the final page, and I did skip towards the end so overpowering was my desire to give this woman a good slap, and came to the acknowledgments I was not surprised to find them along the lines of:
Elizabeth Gilbert, who saved my ass all the way from Afghanistan (Afghanistan?)
Sarah Chalfont who saved my ass several more times
Judy Clain for believing in me
Eric for believing in me even more and so on and so on and so on
Couldn't read any more, my head was down the toilet.
When I bought these two books I received a free copy of the Julia Child's book on Mastering French Cookery and I started to have a read. I tell you this book is not your grab a page and knock up a quick meal, it is serious stuff and I have been reading it like you would read a travel tome or a biography and it is terrific. I am fired with zeal to try some of the recipes - not one a day or course, more likely one a month so I will let you know how I get on.
But please don't bother with Julie and Julia unless you want to find yourself seriously pissed off by the end of it....
