Chapter one: Julie & Julia

Two days before Thanksgiving, on the eve of November 26th, 2019, I watched the Nora Ephron film Julie and Julia. I remember the day so clearly. My English class had just begun to read the classic Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet. I was finishing by the assignment we had been given in class so I wouldn't have to do it over the holiday. To make the evening more bearable, I stacked my laptop atop my literature book, heaved them both into the living room, and found an empty spot on the couch to sit. My mother, from the far end of the living room, was surfing through the channels of our DVR when she landed on Julie & Julia. A wonderful movie about a woman named Julie Powell who is searching for a purpose in her life, and she finds it during the one year that she spends cooking the 524 recipes in Julia Child's first cookbook titled, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The movie goes back and forth as Julie advances through Julia's recipes and writes a blog about her cooking experiences with her cat and husband Eric. All the while, Julia graduates from France's cooking school Le Cordon Bleu, and goes on to write a book of her own with the help of two French women, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, along with the support of her husband Paul. Needless to say, I ended up getting very little homework done that night, as I was periodically bobbing my head in and out of my textbook, to catch glimpses of the movie.

The movie is great as a whole, but I much prefer the Julia parts over Julie. The movie just is not the same without Meryl. I suppose it would also help to mention that the two stories are set over fifty years apart. Julia Child's story begins in Paris, France, 1949, after she and her husband Paul have moved there for four years as part of her husband's work for the American government. While they are living in France, Julia is looking for something to do, because she wants to have a purpose. It isn't typical for women of her time to have ambitions, but she isn't a typical woman. Paul knows that; he supports that.

She decides to enroll herself into cooking school and is placed in beginner classes meant for housewives. They are taught basic, kiddish skills like how to boil an egg or butter bread. Bored by the lessons, Julia makes her way to the Madame Brassart's office and asks to be put in advanced classes. With a heavy French accent Madame says to her, "You are not an advanced cook." "Yes, but I do know how to boil an egg," Julia says as she throws her head back and points her pupils to the ceiling. "Do you know how to bone a duck?" Madame interrogates. "No-but that's exactly the sort of thing that I'm very interested in learning how to do." Julia emphasizes. Madame relents, "There is one other class but you will not like it. It's for professionals, which you will never be I'm sure. All men, orgy-eyes, and very expensive. I cannot imagine that you would ever want to pay the tuition." Julia bats her eyes and says, "How much?" The next scene is a shot of her entering the advanced classes with all the men looking at her. She raises her elbows and her eyes light up when she says, Bon Jour!"

During Julia's first class lesson, the students are taught how to chop an onion properly. The men are faster than she is, and Julia doesn't take that lightly. She returns home and cuts enough onions to create a huge pile on her cutting board. Paul comes home from work, sees her, and she says, "Oh, you should have seen the way those men looked at me. Like I was some frivolous housewife just looking for a way to kill time." Her voice trails off and she sniffles because of the onions, however I think she's actually upset. In the following day's class session, Julia is able to slice and dice onions faster than any of her male classmates.

In the next scene, Julia is writing a letter to her friend Avis De Voto where she writes,

"Every morning the alarm goes off at six-thirty and I leap out of bed. By seven-thirty I'm in class, in my apron, pealing potatoes. Then, we cook stock, bone fish, we dress pigeons, we make pastries with so much butter it almost stops your heart just to look at it. My teacher moves so quickly I'm sometimes lost, but I'm way ahead of the others in the class, all of them men, and all of them very unfriendly until they discovered I was fearless. Something I realized about the same time they did..."

Julia is happy; she has found something that she devotes herself too. Paul takes notice, and he loves the fact that his wife is content.

Julie Powell's story is a little different than that. Set in Queens, New York, 2002, she, her husband Eric, and their cat, have just settled into their new apartment above a pizzeria. Julie is in her thirties, she does not enjoy her job working in a cubicle helping people deal with the aftermath of 911, and she especially does not like many of her friends who are snobby business women. When she hears that one of these snobby business woman friends is writing a blog about herself Julie is flabbergasted and says, "I could right a blog. I have thoughts."So, that's what she does. Julie decides to write her own blog, and because she enjoys cooking after a rotten day at work, which is everyday, Julie chooses to write a blog about cooking. Specifically Julie makes the decision to cook her way through her mother's copy of Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a one year timespan.

Julie's progression of her blog is steady and she becomes widely known throughout her state after a matter of time. Soon, she completes 47 recipes in 61 days. During those 61 days, Julia has met two French women, Simone Beck and Loiusette Bertholle; she is also in the midst of graduation from Le Cordon Bleu. To graduate, Julia must write out the recipe for specific dishes that are assigned to her. She does not get to decide. Julia's dishes were oeufs mollets (poached eggs), Cotelettes de veau en surprise (Veal chop surprise,) et (and) creme renverse au caramel (Carmel overturned cream.) She failed the exam because she had no idea what veau en surprise was. (It's a veal chop with mushrooms in a bag.) She has never failed a test in her life, so she is dumbfound. However, while out shopping for cookware with Louisette and Simone, they tell her that she can take the test again, and that meanwhile she can come teach cooking classes with them. In the pursuing days, the three women instruct housewives by teaching them promising techniques. Louisette often leaves in the middle of these classes, because she isn't as dedicated as Simone and Julia. Julia also is given a second chance to retake her exam, after she pulls some strings, and this time she passes. To celebrate her achievement of graduation, Julia hosts a party where she has invited her sister Dorothy, and unbeknownst to Dorothy, Julia has played match-maker for her. However, she ends up falling for a man much shorter than she, Ivan Cousins. The two are married in the next touching scene.

After the wedding, Julia is having lunch with Simone and Louisette when they ask her to help them with their cookbook because a publisher has rejected it. The publisher believes the book isn't written in English. Simone says. "They suggest that if we are continuing with it, we should get a collaborator who can take what we have and make it work for American cooks." She pauses then makes the offer, "Julia, would you do it?" Julia's eyes widen, her face twinkles and she responds, "Would I do it? Yes!" This scene is the moment where Julia begins her ten year cookbook writing venture.

As Julia continues to thrive, Julie starts to get in her own head. She has gotten to the section of Julia's book titled Aspics and she is not fond of them. Aspics are, as she describes, "A beef-flavored gelatin mold." Julie is starting to come to the conclusion that her kitchen is too small to cook these recipes in. That night, she even drops her stuffed chicken on the floor and cries. Julie forgets that Julia Child is famous for the line,

"If you're alone in the kitchen, who's to know?"

Through her sobs, the phone rings. It's a reporter who wants to write about Julie and bring Judith Jones to dinner. Judith Jones is the editior who is responsible for the publication of Julia's cookbook. Julie is in a newfound frenzy of excitement and decides to make Beef Bourguignon for the occasion; the dish that Julia is best known for. As well as Raspberry Bavarian Cream for dessert- a French pastry cream. it turns out, on the evening of the dinner the forecast is rainy, and because Judith is an older woman, she has canceled the plans. Julie is distraught, and her emotions lead to an argument with her husband, and her questioning her blog.

At the same time Julie begins to have doubts about her writing, Julia is forced to rethink her process because Paul has informed her that his work in Paris is finished and he could be relocated to somewhere new. Lucky for her, Paul has been appointed Cultural Affairs Commissioner for the South of France in Marseilles. So, they will have to leave Paris, but won't have to leave France altogether. This means that the book can still be finished on time. On a whim, Julia decides to send her hollandaise sauce recipe to Avis. Despite the fact that she has labeled the papers in bright red pencil ink with the words"Top Secret," Avis disobeyed and showed it to an editor in Boston who showed it to their head of publishing, who wants to publish the book and give the women an advance of 250 dollars. (That's equivalent to 2677.54 dollars today.)

As Julia continues with the book, Julie has a revelation. she states,

"I've been thinking about me and Julia. She was a secretary for a government agency and I am, too, A really nice guy married her. A really nice guy married me. Both of us were lost and both of us were saved by food in someway or other. So major overlaps. But let's face it, I am not Julia Child. Julia Child never lost her temper just because something boiled over, or collapsed in the oven, or just plain fell through. And she was never horrible to her husband, I'm sure. And she never behaved like, 'who has time to be married?' Which is how I behave sometimes, I'm sorry to say. I wish I were more like her. She deserved her husband and I don't. That's the truth. Well, anyway, that's the truth for now... Yogurt for dinner."

Outside their apartment that same night, Julie and Eric reconcile.

In the next scene, Julia and Simone are at the train station preparing to meet Julia's penpal, Avis De Voto. The three of them Avis, Julia, and Simone attempt to get the book published. It isn't taken because of its length. (700 pages for just sauce and poultry alone.) The publishers say, "We don't want to publish an encyclopedia... Housewives what something quick, with a mix. Like this." The women are given a copy of Real Home Cooking by Della Simmons. Avis speaks up, "But if I may speak for everyone, if you were willing to revise it, I'm sure we would all be interested."

They return to Avis' house where Julia and Simone review Della's book and both appear to come to the conclusion that they have made the book more complicated than it needs to be. Julia questions, "Why did we ever decide to do this anyway? What were we thinking?" Simone responds, "Who can remember?" Julia pipes up, "I can." She continues, "We wanted to write a French cookbook for American women who do not have cooks. So then, that's what we'll do. We'll just do it all over again. And that's that. It'll be easy..."

Julie has now made enough success with her blog that she has caught the eye of Amanda Hesser, a food writer for the New York Times. Ultimately, this is how Julie becomes known around the nation. The next day when she returns from work, there are messages left on her answering machine from reports from all different newspapers who wish to interview her. She is ecstatic. That is, until she receives a message which reveals how Julia Child feels about her blog. Julia doesn't like it. At this time in the film, Julia is now ninety and she think's that Julie's blog is disrespectful, because Julie isn't realizing the joy in cooking; she's just complaining about how her food didn't turn out the way it was supposed to. Julie is also not a very serious chef and she took Julia's ten year project and turned it into a one year project. Julia is quick to point out these things. Julie hangs up the phone, turns around to face Eric and cries,

"Julia hates me."

Meanwhile, Julia is on her couch with a letter in her hand as Paul walks through the door.

"They hate us,"

she says. "Who?" Paul asks. "Houghton Mifflin." This was the publishing company that had made an agreement to publish the book if changes were made, which they were. "No," Paul comforts. "They say the book is good." But they don't want to publish it," Julia harps. "Well they think it's too expensive. They think it's 'economically prohibitive." Paul reads from the letter. "Eight years of our lives just turned out to be something for me to do so I wouldn't have nothing to do. Oh well. Boo-hoo. Now what?" Julia inquires. "You're a teacher. You can teach." Paul hypothesizes." We'll go home,"he explains, "and..." "Mmm, Where's home? Where do we live?"Julia questions. "Home is wherever we are. Alright? And we'll work it out. We'll figure it out. You can teach in our kitchen." Paul comforts. "True,"Julie agrees. "You can teach on television." "Television?" "Mhhm." "Me?" "Yes."Seeing the hesitation in Julia's expression Paul enforces the idea, "Oh, no, Julia I think you would be excellent on television." Julia laughs hysterically. "Paul!" "I do. I do I do." "Don't..." "I'm not kidding you. I'm not. Someone is going to publish your book. Someone is going to read your book and realize what you've done. Because your book is amazing. Your book is a work of genius. Your book is going to change the world. Do you hear me?" Paul tells her."You are so sweet. You are. The sweetest man." Julia appreciates. To close out the scene Paul makes one final statement,"Fuck them."

In the following scene a man has the manuscript of the book in his hands and passes it off to Judith Jones while saying, "Judith, would you take a look at this? Our intrepid literary scout, Avis De Voto is friends with some woman who's written a huge French cookbook. Houghton Mifflin just turned it down."

Judith takes the book draft open and prepares the Beef Bourguignon recipe. She finds the dish delicious. When Julia and Paul return home to Cambridge Massachusetts, Julia receives a letter saying that Knopf wants to publish her book, offering her an advance of 1500 dollars. (16,065.25 dollars today.) The letter reads,

"We believe that your book will do for French cooking in America what Rombauer's the Joy of Cooking did for standard cooking. And we will sell it that way."

Judith also writes that the title of the book be changed because, "...it is of the utmost importance that the title distinguish this book from all the other cookbooks on the market."

Julia and Judith decide on Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

The film reverts back to Julie where Eric and Julie sit on their bed and Eric says, "Julie Child used the word 'hate?' "No. But she said I wasn't respectful, or serious, or something..." At this time in the film, Julia is now ninety and she think's that Julie's blog is disrespectful, because Julie isn't realizing the joy in cooking; she's just complaining about how her food didn't turn out the way it was supposed to. Julie is also not a very serious chef and she took Julia's ten year project and turned it into a one year project. Julia is quick to point out these things. Although Julie is crushed to learn this, Eric points out to her that the Julia Child in her head is perfect, and that's the only one who matters.

With ten minutes left in the film, Julie makes the last recipe; she bones a duck. As well as has a celebratory dinner with her friends and finishes out her blog with one last entry. In the final scene, Julie and Eric are inside of the Julia Child exhibition at the Smithsoian museum where she places a stick of butter underneath Julia's portrait as she looks up at it and says, "I love you, Julia. As the movie ends, her kitchen is no longer a museum. Instead, it's her actual kitchen that she walks in. She receives a package which Paul brings in to her, and the package is her book. She presses a hand to her mouth and is awed when she opens it.

In closing, Julie & Julia is a feel good movie. It's also my personal favorite Meryl movie. Watching Julia (and Julie) fulfill their passions is something that is immensely inspiring to watch. The movie helps me realize how wonderful cooking can be and how it relates us all to each other. The determination that Julia had is immeasurable and stuns me to this day. When her classmates thought she wouldn't graduate, she proved them all wrong by devoting herself to being the best student she possibly could be. When publishers rejected her book, she worked day and night to make it better. She was, and still remains, fearless in every sense of the word. After watching the movie, my parents gifted me with a copy of her book for Christmas. I've been making French omelettes for breakfast from it ever since.

It warms my heart to see how lovingly Julia and Paul behaved towards each other. They just understood each other so well. Paul wholeheartedly supported her career. It didn't have to be the other way around that it usually is, especially in that time period. Their love was really; it's the kind of love I want for myself.

Another part of the movie that I think isn't realized is the fact that she had no children. They wanted them, she and Paul, but they struggled to have them. So ultimately, Julia had to choose. She chose her career. The movie reveals this in a scene an hour and five minutes in, during a touching moment shared by Julia and Paul that made me unspeakably sad. I kept thinking about it days after, and it still lingers in the back of my mind even today.

I have come to the conclusion that while I think she made the right choice, I also think she would've much preferred to do both. I absolutely hate the stereotype that a woman can either have a successful career or a family - not both. It makes me so desperately sad that she had to choose, because I think any woman is worthy of both, and when I grow up, I will make sure of it.

I leave you with these last few sentences: Meryl really did bring her to life. When watching the movie, it took me a few minutes to realize that the actual Julia Child wasn't in the movie because her accent was so accurate and true. She won a Golden Globe for her acting in the movie - much deserved.

As always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.

Added update on June 13th 2020:

As a birthday present, my mom came up with the idea that we should make Juia Child's Beef Bourguignon together. Today, my mom and I made Beef Bourguignon, one week after my birthday. It was deliciously rich, and the smell of chuck roast and burgundy wine as they married together in the oven was heavenly. It filled the whole house with comfort. Mom even let me have a gulp of the wine for what she called "cooking purposes." These adjectives are poor words to use to describe the food, I understand, but do you know that feeling when something is just so wonderful that there is no word to match its caliber? Beef Bourguignon has that sense of wonderment.

I made a slideshow of pictures detailing our cooking process, narrated by the voice of Julia Child on her actual cooking show, The French Chef. Beef Bourguignon was the first dish she made on the show in 1963. It was also the dish that her editor, Judith Jones, tested from Julia's cookbook when deciding whether or not to publish it. The dish was even the meal that Julie Powell was going to make for Judith Jones, until she brunt the stew, it started raining, and dinner plans were canceled. Thankfully, my mother and I didn't burn it. We followed Julia to a tee, and watched her episode before cooking. As you can see, this dish plays a very important role in history. Now, it's part of the history that my mother and I share. I hope I have captured the enjoyable time that we had together while making it in the video below.