Reviewed by Jessica MacMurray Blaine

It’s easy to predict how things will unfold for Julie Powell, simply by reading the title page. There will be laughable-in-hindsight catastrophes in the kitchen, a supportive but skeptical husband, a menial job and a wry narrator on a mission. Much of the rest is immediately laid bare; Powell uses the words “potage,” “Frenchie,” and “gynecologist” before the first chapter --“The Road to Hell is Paved with Leeks and Potatoes”—is finished. And suddenly, you know exactly what—and who—you’re dealing with. 

Powell set out to cook every single recipe in Julia Child’s seminal work, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (or MtAoFC, as Powell calls it) in her tiny apartment. She did make and write about some lovely food. She did agonize and laugh and write her way through some emotional crises, some culinary ones. She did drink a lot of Stoli gimlets. Her marriage never really seemed to be threatened, her job seemed worth risking, and whether she mastered the art of living or not remains to be seen.

But none of that predictable business, although it is funny and bold, and occasionally insightful, really carries the book. The beauty of Julie & Julia lies in two things: the food, and the relationship that Julie Powell has with her phantom guide: the Julia Child of legend and screen, the icon. MtAoFC was a groundbreaking book, bringing the traditions of French cuisine into the American kitchen—and Julia Child was an intelligent, determined translator. It’s easy now, in an era of epicurious.com and pan-global-fusion, to forget Child’s work laying the foundation on which much of fine Western cuisine is built. Powell does us the favor of reminding us what it was, exactly, that Julia brought to the American palate. It’s nice to be reminded.