My Movie Review

Last night some of the moms and I went to see Julie and Julia, the movie about the book about the blog about the book by Julia Child. And I had a wonderful time. Unlike many people, I didn't feel like the modern Julie part took away from the film, but maybe that's because I read the blog real time and enjoyed remembering such instances as when Amanda Hesser came to dinner and when Judith Jones did not. I didn't start it from the beginning but read, as best as I can recall, about 6 months of the project as it was progressing. I remember when the original NYTimes article appeared (though I don't remember there being a picture, as in the film). And when Julie heard that Julia had called her a disrespectful upstart and much later, after the blog, when Julie blogged the day Julia died. And so watching the modern part of the story was familiar to me. Of course, I loved Meryl Streep as Julia--who hasn't?--and the focus on her relationship with Paul. But, maybe because I'm a vegetarian, I wasn't that interested in most of the food, only getting excited about that raspberry bavarian creme. Now, there's a recipe I might be tempted to get the recipe for and make (and was sad to see fall on the ground in the movie). Which would be easy--for the first time, Mastering the Art of French Cooking has reached the top of the NYTimes bestseller. I actually don't have it and am not sure I'll get it--not the kind of food to appeal to 4 years olds, or even, really, me. But I might pick up some of the various memoirs that are out there; Julia Child just seems fascinating. In the end though, I still like the blog the best, with her extensive notes on actually cooking the food, particularly all the difficult forays around the city to find ingredients, and her wicked funny (and often nasty) tongue, but more particularly her slice of New York life--I'll never forget her rant about small grocery stores and the people inside them--at a very difficult time after September 11th, when I was living there too.