Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen (Hardcover)

by Julie Powell (Author) "As far as I know, the only evidence supporting the theory that Julia Child first made Potage Parmentier during a bad bout of ennui is..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Julia Child, Long Island City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Julie & Julia is the story of Julie Powell's attempt to revitalize her marriage, restore her ambition, and save her soul by cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, in a period of 365 days. The result is a masterful medley of Bridget Jones' Diary meets Like Water for Chocolate, mixed with a healthy dose of original wit, warmth, and inspiration that sets this memoir apart from most tales of personal redemption.

When we first meet Julie, she's a frustrated temp-to-perm secretary who slaves away at a thankless job, only to return to an equally demoralizing apartment in the outer boroughs of Manhattan each evening. At the urging of Eric, her devoted and slightly geeky husband, she decides to start a blog that will chronicle what she dubs the "Julie/Julia Project." What follows is a year of butter-drenched meals that will both necessitate the wearing of an unbearably uncomfortable girdle on the hottest night of the year, as well as the realization that life is what you make of it and joy is not as impossible a quest as it may seem, even when it's -10 degrees out and your pipes are frozen.

Powell is a natural when it comes to connecting with her readers, which is probably why her blog generated so much buzz, both from readers and media alike. And while her self-deprecating sense of humor can sometimes dissolve into whininess, she never really loses her edge, or her sense of purpose. Even on day 365, she's working her way through Mayonnaise Collee and ending the evening "back exactly where we started--just Eric and me, three cats and Buffy...sitting on a couch in the outer boroughs, eating, with Julia chortling alongside us...."

Inspired and encouraging, Julie and Julia is a unique opportunity to join one woman's attempt to change her life, and have a laugh, or ten, along the way. --Gisele Toueg

From Publishers Weekly
Powell became an Internet celebrity with her 2004 blog chronicling her yearlong odyssey of cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. A frustrated secretary in New York City, Powell embarked on "the Julie/Julia project" to find a sense of direction, and both the cooking and the writing quickly became all-consuming. Some passages in the book are taken verbatim from the blog, but Powell expands on her experience and gives generous background about her personal life: her doting husband, wacky friends, evil co-workers. She also includes some comments from her "bleaders" (blog readers), who formed an enthusiastic support base. Powell never met Julia Child (who died last year), but the venerable chef's spirit is present throughout, and Powell imaginatively reconstructs episodes from Child's life in the 1940s. Her writing is feisty and unrestrained, especially as she details killing lobsters, tackling marrowbones and cooking late into the night. Occasionally the diarist instinct overwhelms the generally tight structure and Powell goes on unrelated tangents, but her voice is endearing enough that readers will quickly forgive such lapses. Both home cooks and devotees of Bridget Jones–style dishing will be caught up in Powell's funny, sharp-tongued but generous writing.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (September 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031610969X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316109697
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (223 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,219 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'm glad I didn't BUY it!, January 16, 2006

By	B. Bowse "music lover" (Tucson, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was a gift -- requested and much anticipated. I'm sorry my son wasted his money on my behalf. Yes, I'm a "foodie," and foodies are going to be as disappointed as I was in this book. I'm also an avid reader, and the premise of this book was irresistable. Ugh! I had to force myself to finish it. It had absolutely nothing to do with food, as I know and love it; it was all about the author, her dysfunctional husband/friends, her wretched living conditions, and her frequent alcoholic binges. Julia Child (whom I met more than once in my youth, since she was an acquaintance of my mother) was right to wash her hands of the whole thing. I'm donating my copy to the library. I would NEVER pass it along to a friend!

53 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I counldn't even finish it!, January 14, 2006

By	Mama Bee (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

I had such high hopes for this book, especially after reading Powell's article in a recent Gourmet (or was it Bon Appetite?) magazine. I am so utterly disappointed in this book. If Powell had completely focused on her cooking project I would have been mildly amused. However, the chaos in her life is not entertaining. I don't want to read about someone drinking Vodka every night and complaining about the world. This book is not what I expected and I'm embarrassed that I gave it to my father as a Christmas gift. In his words, "life's too short to waste it by reading books like this". What a waste of money. After reading half of the book I finally put it down last night and won't be picking it up again. Such a disappointment!

88 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not good. Many mistakes were made, December 11, 2005

By	Nilda "Nilda" (New York) - See all my reviews

I'm going to try to be as objective as possible since I was an editor for many years and would like to voice what I think the actual issues with the book are. Starting with the title: Julie and Julia, 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. This, to me says funny, light-hearted adventures in cooking ala the comedic genius of Julia Child. Not so. It's more of a memoir that is a bit dark at times. The title, I feel, misrepresents the content but this is only minor. The book jacket was extremely well done and actually reminded me of the first episode on the Julia Child French Chef DVD where she tries to use "conviction" to flip potatoes in the pan and a big hunk lands on the stove and she declares "well, that didn't go so well!" Hilarious stuff and she wasn't even trying to be funny.

Next, the author's opinions about republicans, the president, 9/11 victims etc... I don't have any objection to anyone having strong opinions. Many times, if something is controversial, it actually helps a book sell more copies and is often exactly what a publisher might have in mind right from the start. Where this fails is in the frequency of the remarks. Exhausting. Really good authors need only to mention something once to get a point across. In this case, anyone who is buying a book about someone as significant as Julia Child is likely part of a demographic that is educated and sharp enough to understand the author's position in one go. It was a bit in your face at times. And though the author may have been honest about her feelings with regard to 9/11 families, victims et al., there seemed to be a lack of general humanity in the tone of it - not that she actually felt a certain way but how she put it out for the world to read. The issue here in my opinion (and her editors should really take responsibility for this) is that anyone's first book is critical to that author's ability to make an impression and gain a reputation - one that will help push a career forward. You don't want to insult any group of people your first time around the block. Successful opinion-giving comes with getting your readers to trust and respect your opinions before hitting the sensitive areas. Everything is about timing. You can say anything and get away with it if you give it the proper placement. What all good authors want (and need) is to reach a wide audience particularly on the first go. You want to appeal to a variety of people unless you are writing a high tech book about some new technology/product/whatever that only affects a niche. And really good readers - the caliber of what any author would want - remember these critical first books and the impressions made. I'm guessing that there's the possiblility that the publisher pushed this through the system before it was ready to go in order to get it on the market in time for the gift-giving season. But I think a disservice was done to the author because it really needed a bit more work. She wasn't a trained, practiced writer. She could have used more time and assistance but, sadly, editorial help is no longer what it used to be. Anyway, specific examples include the beginning of the book. All of the gynecological stuff might have been better later in the book. The first few pages of the book seemed to be a forced reproduction of the first few pages in the Devil Wears Prada where the secretary is driving around trying to get too much done and everything is going wrong in the circumstances that she finds herself in - all beyond her control. Why it works in the Devil Wears Prada is because that woman is actually writing about what the book is about. Julie and Julia opens up with the author in the gynecologist's office getting bad news while the doctor is wiping off his speculum. (A book about food begins with a gynecologist wiping off his speculum? No no no!) And somewhere from there it goes on about selling her eggs to pay off debt. And then she's in the subway with severe body odor and everyone is crazy and somehow she ends up at the market and she's purchased the items for potato soup. It doesn't work because there was too much information - the type of information that is better given later - after the reader starts to feel like he or she knows the writer and would be more comfortable getting such intimate details. I would have also suggested removing the sections on Paul and Julia because it was off-focus and didn't bring anything to the memoir. Less is always more. Well, you get the point. The author may still sell a lot of copies since the title is a bit deceiving but she will probably have fewer repeat buyers if a second book is in her future.

Marketing is the last thing I'll mention. This is clearly a book suited to a certain age group - late 20s/early 30s. The problem is with the fact that Julia Child is an icon, a pioneer really, and she appeals to a lot of people, especially people who have been watching her shows since the beginning and reading her books (the first-edition buyers). It should have been marketed to the specific demographic than as broadly as it was (because of the misinterpretation of the title). Though many younger people would be fine with most of the book, the tone, the language and opinions, I would say that the over 50 crowd might not be OK with all of the profanity, sexual references and general unhappiness that overwhelms what the focus of the book was meant to be - a book about trying to cook all of Julia's recipes in one year in one small place. And unfortunately, many of these hard-core Julia devotees won't really get what the book is about until after they've spent the bucks and are angry about it. I was also left with the impression that Julie didn't really like Julia all that much. I'm curious to see how her next project compares to this. It will be very telling.