"Julie and Julia": Useful Lessons from a Worthwhile Movie

Julie and Julia is a fabulous film. Meryl Streep and Amy Adams star in this adorably endearing film about cooking and food.

A few short lessons from the movie:

1. It's good to have a passion.
2. Both women had definite goals.
3. Meeting their goals were achievements that brought them success.
4. Their men supported them psychologically, emotionally and helped run errands and fix problems. Without them, they wouldn't have achieved their goals successfully.
5. Blogs aren't necessarily evil time-wasters for either writer or reader.
   

It's also a great advertisement for Julia Child's first book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".



Everyone who sees "Julie and Julia" seems to love it, including this reviewer. The movie did follow the book of her early married life, "My Life in France" by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme to some extent, with much left out. That book is fabulous, too.



Definitely a movie to inspire a round of cooking. Makes for pleasant entertainment, and what an upscale theater audience.


Wikimedia:National Museum of American History

The Julia Child exhibit we saw last weekend in Washington's National Museum of American History was her kitchen in Cambridge Massachusetts, here:


The Jeremiad: Julia Child's Kitchen

Having worked my way through every recipe in "Le Cordon Bleu At Home"(except a couple) and videos, I can truly sympathize with many of the challenges faced by these busy cooks. Of course, had I blogged about it, I certainly wouldn't have hoped for a free lesson at the Cordon Bleu.



In the movie, Julie Powell always hoped to meet Julia Child. Yet it seems slightly presumptuous to me that a food blogger should have really hoped for an actual meeting with the great chef, as Julie did in the movie. I can see why she hoped; she's a good writer. But whether she's a talented chef or merely an interested cook who's a talented writer remains to be proved. It's unlikely that a blogger starting to experience and write about politics would be able to meet a President. Julia Child was a very busy celebrity and had millions of fans.

Don't we all have some interest in cooking?

For more about Julia Child: Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child, by Noel Riley Fitch.