Julie & Julia, Blogger Flick Sure to Be a Hit!

First Major Motion Picture about Blogging Opened Last  Friday

I saw the new film, Julie & Julia last night with my friend, Vjia. It is fantastic!

This movie is about friendship, desire, food, and marriage. And most of all, it is about being obsessed with food and blogging. The film is hilarious, sweet, sensitive and refreshingly filled with love. We laughed out loud and elbowed each other throughout the story. Our mutual love of cooking made this film debut the perfect one to attend together.

Meryl Streep, my all time favorite actress, nailed Julia Child. She had the voice, the mannerisms, the personality. In her physicality, she portrayed the largeness of the real Julia–in stature and in  presence. I have always loved Meryl because she is so talented at living her characters. She is gifted beyond measure. I understand she got the part by doing a quick impersonation of Child during a chance meeting with Nora Ephron, the writer of the screenplay. Way to let your light shine, Meryl!

Boy, could I relate to the Julie character. There is something about blogging that just draws you in and captures you. I sometimes become so engrossed that my mind goes into deep space. When her husband began to complain about how blogging was making her difficult to live with, it rang so true! My husband just can’t fathom why this blog takes so much of my focus, time and energy. He gets exasperated at times.

It’s like he is talking into a black hole, because I am oblivious to him, when I am thinking about my next blog post.

See the Trailer to the Film

When Julie gives her cubicle mate a “high ten” when she has a slew of comments on her daily post, I saw myself in her exuberance. It is exhilarating to “strike a nerve” with your readers. We bloggers, each in our own way are trying to reach out to the world, to share our passions and experiences of being human. When people share back it is immensely rewarding. A cyber kinship develops that is just indescribable.

Vija and I started a gourmet club  decades ago, when we were both single. It was a his and hers gourmet club–of all single men and women. We bonded and celebrated over our delectable dishes, threw lavish parties and learned to tackle difficult recipes together.

That was before the internet. And marriage.

Now, most of my foodie friends are online.  When I want a recipe, I search for it on the web. Often, I have found blogs to be the best source of recipes, because they usually have photos and lots of explanatory text to go along with the basic recipe.

Like Julie & Julia, and Hartke is Online! blogger Andrea Milstein, (see Homecooking Good for Health and Marriage), I have found much of the secret to a successful marriage is in the kitchen.

I admire Julie Powell, not just because of her blog, but because of the daunting challenge she gave herself, to cook and blog through the entire Julia Child book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year!

I commented on Julie’s blog this morning that the only recipe I ever made of Julia Child’s was a cake recipe from her book The Way to Cook.  I made it for my nephew’s christening party.  It was called The Cambridge Cake, it was a genoise layer cake with a mocha buttercream frosting, chocolate walls and a bow. Each layer had a rum syrup drizzled over it. It took 4 hours of back breaking work, and at the end of it, the cake was beautiful and amazing, but I was shot. My whole body ached and I was thoroughly spent. I hobbled to the party with the cake and swore off Julia Child, forever!

So, how Julie managed a marriage, a full time job and found the resolve to tackle and complete this experiment, I will never know. Her fame and good fortune are well deserved.

As for me and Vija, she is heading off to culinary school, and I am a food blogger with grand plans for my blog.  Someday, we hope to open a restaurant or B&B together, hopefully in a resort or tropical place.

So, I am Julie, Vija is Julia.

We had a good laugh about that as we parted last night.

Julie Powell still blogs on her What Could Happen? website. Yesterday, she had 332 comments on her blog post. Today, my blog has 333 subscribers, which is a milestone. It is exactly 1/3 of the way to my goal of 1000 subscribers by the end of this year. I can hardly wait for the day when I have as many comments on one blog post!

Last week, as publicist for Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutrition education group that recommends animal fats for their nutritional benefits, I distributed a press release about Julia’s penchant for butter. So, my life is getting folded in to the movie in just a small way.

Here is the link to the Weston A. Price Foundation press release honoring Julia Child.

Oh, and Julie–you have challenged me, intrepid food blogger you,  to dust off my copy of The Way of Cooking, and make another attempt at mastering the art of french cooking.

In a future post, I will let you know how it goes!

Here is the Sony Pictures website for Julie & Julia. They have some good reviews of the film in their Julie & Julia press room.