2.8 Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 Recipes, A Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell

Julie Powell decided to challenge herself in a pretty crazy way, likes Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plays Civilization and loves to cook... Sound like anyone you know?

I read, swallowed in great greedy gulps really, Powell's site after she completed her challenge. Which is why I resisted reading the book. While I recognized most of the stories, the book had more details about some things but significantly less about the day to day drudgery of the "project". The madness of it is obvious, cook every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year.

On her site, Powell complains a lot, I would be too if I took up the same challenge she did, whereas, in the book, it is muted. It is a crazy project; it's way too much for any person to take on while working full time, which she did. On the whole I liked it. I thought that the imaginary scenes with Paul and Julia Child were a little hokey, I didn't feel like they were necessary or added anything to an all ready interesting story. They were even less fitting by the end when Julie finds out from a reporter that Julia thinks that Powell is taking advantage of Child.

Powell desperately needed a shake-up, to jolt herself out of an exhausting, frustrating existence. Lord knows, I can identify with that. I've mentioned before that I am going back to school. I found out last week that I've been officially accepted. I know that community colleges aren't really supposed to turn anyone away, but it was a bit of a nail biter, as the boy will attest to. As of August, I will be a culinary student at Santa Barbara Community College. I'm thrilled. And I only have 44 more books to go. Expect a good portion of them to be about food.