Julie Powell is an American
authorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
best known for her
bookA book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.
Biography
Powell was born and raised in
AustinAustin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
,
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. She attended
Amherst CollegeAmherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, graduating in 1995 with a double major in theater and
creative writingCreative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
. She later married Eric Powell, an editor of
Archeology magazine.
Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
While working for the
Lower Manhattan Development CorporationThe Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was formed in July 2002, after the September 11 attacks to plan the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan and distribute nearly $10 billion in federal funds aimed at rebuilding downtown Manhattan....
in August 2002, Powell began the Julie/Julia Project, a
blogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
chronicling her attempt to cook all the
recipeA recipe is a set of instructions that describe how to prepare or make something, especially a culinary dish.-Components:Modern culinary recipes normally consist of several components*The name of the dish...
s in
Julia ChildJulia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...
's
Mastering the Art of French CookingMastering the Art of French Cooking is a two-volume French cookbook written by Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, both of France, and Julia Child of the United States...
. The blog quickly gained a large following, and Powell signed a book deal with
Little, Brown and CompanyLittle, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...
. The resulting book,
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, was published in 2005. The
paperbackPaperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
edition was retitled
Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. Child was reported to have been unimpressed with Powell's blog, believing her determination to cook every recipe in
Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year to be a stunt. Child's editor, Judith Jones, said in an interview: "Flinging around four-letter words when cooking isn't attractive, to me or Julia. She didn't want to endorse it. What came through on the blog was somebody who was doing it almost for the sake of a stunt. She would never really describe the end results, how delicious it was, and what she learned. Julia didn’t like what she called 'the flimsies.' She didn't suffer fools, if you know what I mean."
Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession
Powell's second book,
Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, which details the effects on her marriage of an affair she had after the first book's publication, as well as her experiences learning the
butcherA butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments...
trade, was published November 30, 2009.
Film
A film adaptation, also based on
Julia ChildJulia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...
's autobiography
My Life in FranceMy Life in France is an autobiography by Julia Child, published in 2006. It was compiled by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme, her husband's grandnephew, during the last eight months of her life, and completed and published by Prud'homme following her death in August 2004.In her own words, it is a...
, directed by
Nora EphronNora Ephron is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, journalist, author, and blogger.She is best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in...
, and titled
Julie & JuliaJulie & Julia is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Nora Ephron starring Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Amy Adams, and Chris Messina...
, was released August 7, 2009.
Amy AdamsAmy Lou Adams is an American actress and singer. Adams began her performing career on stage in dinner theaters before making her screen debut in the 1999 black comedy film Drop Dead Gorgeous...
stars as Powell and
Meryl StreepMary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
as Julia Child.
External links