Julie and Julia

Last night I went to see Julie Powell, the author of Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of French Cooking. The book is now out in paperback and she's out touring to sell it.

Of course, being from Boston, I love Julia Child. I can see how some people feel she exploited Julia's fame. She addressed some of that in her talk. It's clear she developed a connection to Julia and she expressed her homage to her.

I enjoyed Julie's book and recommended it to friends. In fact, I sent my copy of the book to a foodie friend. Scroll down to January 22. She has over 100 cookbooks!

Julie Powell is much younger than I am, and I was surprised at her disclosure. For example, I would never write about selling my eggs if I had the ovaries or cojones to do it.

I went to the talk with a knitting buddy. I was late due to kids, getting a bit lost, and no parking. So, I missed some of the reading. The Q&A was good. Of course, I would have wanted to ask more questions.

Julie Powell is clearly smart and good with an audience. She's a clever writer, and sure had a lot of time on her hands to cook and blog. Given her intellect and her under-employment, she was bound to be an author at some point. She was very lucky in that her blog was picked up by the media and she got an audience and a book deal. I'm not clear how she got her audience.

Overall, I wonder how you get traffic to your blog. I guess you have to have a unique project or a special hook. Of course, it helps if you are a good writer.

Afterwards, we went out to a Mexican joint full of college kids. It was good to be out but it's a young crowd in this college town. I drank a Negra Modelo and had a steak burrito. Negra Modelo is my favorite Mexican beer. Just tasting one brings back memories of a Mexican vacation with my sisters long ago, but that's something I'd never blog about....