Three years ago, Julie Powell was a frustrated secretary about to turn thirty in her crummy outer-borough New York City apartment. Then, she hatched a plan - bold, desperate, and slightly ridiculous - to renovate her life by cooking her way through Julia Child's venerable tome Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. She chronicled her progress in an on-line journal, open for all the world to read, and something magic happened: people loved it, and Julie Powell became an underground celebrity to foodies and amateur cooks across the country.

Reading Julie and Julia, the book that eventually grew out of her journal,
it's easy to see why Julie is such a hit. She's a transplanted Texan with a
feisty sense of humor who's never afraid to laugh or to follow where her
warbling muse leads her. If Julia Child instructs her to use a finicky rice
preparation (which Julie affectionately dubs "Bitch Rice"), she'll do it, even
if it takes some generous cursing and a couple of vodka gimlets to smooth the process along.

Still a reluctant secretary, Julie struggles mightily with the challenges of
buying offal, clarifying endless pounds of butter, and balancing the conflicting demands of her readers and her family. You will laugh out loud as she confronts the deep mysteries of cooking marrow bones and grows increasingly comfortable - and hence uneasy - with murdering lobsters. She brings to her project and to her writing enormous joi de vivre - not haughty, not posh, neither Napa nor Nobu - but a hearty, genial gusto for great steak, a perfect cocktail, or a really smashing French sauce.

At its heart, Julie and Julia is about a young woman daring to be bold rather than perfect in her love of cooking. The Julia Child she invokes - a grand giantess equipped with wine glass and cleaver - is our reminder that when we are in the kitchen, we need not be impeccable nor pristine, but only hungry and fearless.

Review by Mark Bradshaw, October 28, 2005