Note - Spoiler Alert!
We are watching "Julie and Julia" with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. I thought you might like to enjoy experiencing it with us.
Amy Adams cooks chicken with cream and mushrooms
Ah, Food Porn. Fluffy Bear just made a little orgasmic noises.
Julia Childs is at her first cooking course at the Cordon Bleu
Haha! Their first lesson is how to boil an egg. Reminds me of a recipe book my mother used to have which was written by a group of women to raise money for charity. Was it the Rotary Anns? I can't remember.
Anyway, one of the women clearly had a sense of humor and submitted a recipe especially for husbands. It was "Boiled Oeuf." I laughed my ass off the first time I saw it.
Julia Childs goes into a Paris patisserie
Oh, my GOD! I just let out a high pitched shriek. How I love going into patisseries - those glorious smelling, colorful places!
I remember how the people behind the counter would get pinched faces as they heard Fluffy Bear and I conversing in English accents, trying to choose between the delicacies and stop ourselves from buying enough treats for eight people.
Then, once we were ready and I turned to the shop owner and greeted him or her in French, watching their faces light up. Ah! An Englishwoman who makes an effort! Suddenly the conversation would flow, they would make recommendations, brew us some coffee and then we would choose a table, sit outside and indulge.
There is nothing quite like tearing that first part of a fresh croissant off and popping it into your mouth... It is one of those feelings that is unique, sits indelibly carved in your memory and you seek it out, this perfect experience, again and again. Like a scary rollercoaster ride, or the perfect kiss.
But no supermarket, no independent bakery can ever rival a real French patisserie croissant, no matter where you are. Even if the owner is a real Frenchman.
Maybe it's because the expertise isn't there. Maybe the flour and butter is special in France. Maybe it's the fact that you are in France that adds to the flavor. I don't know.
I just know that I really miss real French croissant.
A lot.
Julia takes her first test at the Cordon Bleu
She is asked to write down the recipe for Creme Renversee au Caramel. This dessert was my mother's staple at family parties. The recipe calls for an astronomical amount of eggs, takes beating till your arm wants to fall off and is the best dessert I have ever had in my life.
As my mother got older and was more and more sick with Cancer, she struggled to cook. But, when I went home to visit, she always made this for me.
I never ever order Creme Caramel in a restaurant, for I am utterly convinced that no-one can make it like my mother.
Julie moves on to Aspics
Urgh! My parents loved aspics. I never ever liked them. That revolting jelly around the meat repulsed me. The taste, the texture, the wobbly-bobblyness of them. I used to pick out the pieces of meat and try to wipe the jelly off them.
Julia complains about converting metric measures to imperial
"Measurements do not matter" says Simone."Of course they do!" says Julia.
My mother was exactly the same.
"Only in cakes," she told me, "do proportions matter. Everything else, you just add to taste, and substitute. Just experiment, my dear!"
As I've said to you before, she wanted me to spend time with her in the kitchen and learn, but I refused. I equated my mother's job as family cook as part of her oppression by my father, and didn't want to end up as a housewife. If I never learnt the skills, I could have a plausible excuse for any potential suitor!
Besides which, I wanted to be a career woman.
My friends think I am lucky because Fluffy Bear does all the cooking in our house. Yes, I am lucky. Very lucky. But I missed out on learning from a master chef, my mother.
"Just give me the recipes," I told her."I don't have recipes!" she snapped. "I just do it!"
And yum yum! She sure did.
Julie is outed as a blogger
They day I dread! Julie's boss finds out about her blog!
I am even more concerned about this part of the story than Julie's problems with her husband. Maybe that's because my blog doesn't get in the way of my marriage. Fluffy Bear is very supportive. He even laughs at my "He Said She Said" posts - because I add detail that make them more dramatic or comedic than our real lives.
Fact is, we get on so well with each other that we piss some of our friends off. Sometimes I even wonder at it. Not to say we don't have issues - of course we do! But being friends isn't one of them.
So... back to the outing thing.
If I was outed as a blogger to my colleagues or to people I've chosen not to tell (my good friends know) it would stifle my writing.
How could I tell you about my colleague who has as dry a sense of humor as I have if he finds out who I am? And will he joke with me if he suspects he may be quoted?
How can I tell you about TLA-itis if the people I work with know they said "CEP", "GEW" or "BPY" in a meeting with me. I'm not going to bother to explain those Three Letter Acronyms to you. They are specific to the tools and processes used in places I've worked, so they won't mean anything even if i do break them down. They're in the same family as: "SWAG" (silly wild arsed guess) and FUBARed (fucked up beyond all recognition).
And some places where I've worked handle sensitive client information and therefore have very - um... - effective legal departments.
No. No. No! Anonymity is vital.
Julia meets her pen pal
Do pen pals exist anymore anymore?
My mother had pen pals that she wrote to her whole life and yet never met. When my sister came to visit us in the UK a few years ago, she went up country to visit a woman she'd been writing to for over 30 years.
I remember, as a child, my mother encouraging me to write to kids from overseas who advertised for pen pals in kids magazines.
I never wanted to commit to writing regularly (I was a lazy, spoiled child), so I never followed up on it. Think now, if I had relationships with people in Brazil, or Australia, or China!
I do actually know people in all those places, to be honest, but I've taken another path to get those contacts, and we don't write. Has email killed the letter as an art form?
I think we write our letters in blogs now but, sadly, it's often a one sided conversation. I do learn things about other people's lives, from reading their blogs, but dialog is not a big part of the equation.
I should've written those foreign kids and become a pen pal. Damn! My mother was right about everything!
Julie is in her underwear, being carried to the bed by Eric
She's cooked over 300 recipes and she's that thin?
BULLSHIT!
I can't help but wonder what the real people this movie is based on think of their portrayal in it. The bitchy career "friends" in the beginning, too preoccupied with their cell phones to make time to talk to each other at lunch; Julie's mother, who criticizes and tears her down at every opportunity; Julie's husband, who leaves her because of the food meltdowns and not enough sex.
On Julia's side of the equation, everyone is probably dead, but Louisette Bertholle's descendants, like Salieri's after "Amadeus" came out, may be pissed off at the storyline involving their esteemed ancestor. She is shown as not having an equal contribution to "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," which is a little sad.
I know it makes the movie more interesting, but I can't help but feel sorry for real people out there when they are portrayed negatively in a film.
Julie cooks duck in pastry
Me: "Wow! Look at that, Honey. Imagine all the fat from the skin of the duck seeping..."Fluffy Bear: "... into the meat inside the pastry? Oooooh....."Me: "Oooooh!"
Julia gets the first copy of her published book
I know I should be cheering for Julia, but I spent most of the scene admiring her beautiful shoes.
The final still shot, however, of Julia with her hand over her mouth, looking at her book, was very endearing.
An actual review of the movie
It's very sweet but, as Fluffy Bear said, we'd rather have had the whole movie be about Julia, who seemed to have been a fascinating person. I'd love to know more about her life in various countries as well as her journey to becoming the quintessential TV chef.
I think we need a miniseries on Julia Child.
Meryl Streep could do it, or even Gena Davis. Even Jane Lynch, who played Julia's sister in the movie, could give it a go.
HBO? Showtime?