AUTHOR: Julie Powell
STARTED: April 27, 2013
FINISHED: April 27, 2013
PAGES: 310
GENRE: Memoir/ Food
FIRST SENTENCE: At seven o'clock on a dreary evening in the left bank, Julia began roasting pigeons for the second time in her life.
SUMMARY: [From BN.com] With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul.Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a tiny apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's worn, dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes -- in the span of one year.At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye.And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her outer-borough kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.
THOUGHTS: I saw the movie first and I loved it. This book was just as delightful. I am so glad my mom decided to hand this book over when she was finished. I love food, and I love reading. This book was just the perfect piece for read-a-thon. If you've seen the movie then you, in a way, have read this book. The tone is the same for both.
The best part of this book is seeing how Powell struggles and preservers through her quest to complete her self-set goal. She shares her highs and lows, and is able to show her own faults with honesty. She is so open that many of these moments are hilarious (although the last bit with the maggots left me gagging a bit). This is a book about how Powell grows up. She learns (and she eats), and it's a great story.
Finally, I must mention that Powell's descriptions of her cooking sound delicious. If nothing else, read this book for the food.
RATING: 8/10 [Terrific]
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