Julie and Julia

I finished reading Julie Powell’s book Julie & Julia:  365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen.  I liked it.  It’s not War and Peace, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be.  It’s the memoir of an over-talented, under-employed soon to be 30 woman who decided to accomplish an impromptu task and document it in a blog.  It’s the first blog I ever followed and it inspired me to start this one. 

Most of the reviews of this book have been positive.  Some have had negative comments like Julie isn’t a real foodie because she would eat bacon and jalapeño pizza “when the Internet wasn’t watching” (LA Times) or that the book is like Sex and the City for home cooks, except that her friends didn’t have interesting enough sex lives (NY Times). 

Ummmmm, yeah.  I think that’s the point of why the blog was so popular and why the book is so easy to relate to.  I’m a granola crunching, extended breastfeeding mother and I still really like WOW potato chips and full fat sour cream dip.  We eat Wendy’s take out on Saturday lunches when we’re too tired and hungry to make something and we’re sure the baby has gone down for good for his afternoon nap.  My single friends, even the adventuresome ones, are not at all like Samantha on Sex and the City.  Or even Carrie for that matter.  I much better identified with the exploits of the girlfriends in Julie’s book than the chicks on SatC. 

I even cried at the end when Julie talked about how Julia Child and the Project pulled her from a sea of misery and gave her a purpose in life.  Of course, I also cried at the end of the movie Wall Street, because I am completely lame that way. 

But yeah.  I give it a thumbs-up.  It’s not a rehash of the blog; it’s more of a behind the scenes look at what was happening while she was cooking and writing and working as a government drone.  Page 1 revealed enough new information to me to make me slack jawed in what I was going to read in the next 300-some pages.  It’s funny (I laughed out loud and woke Dave several times).  It’s interesting.  And it makes you hungry and want to cook, although it may cool your jets towards trying anything with aspic in it.

Can you Stand this Cuteness?

On a monkey related note, yesterday morning before school, Conor was walking around the house, which he is totally into now.  I heard him fiddling with the dog storage container and could tell by Patches’ very focused look something interesting was going on.  I turned the corner to see Conor carefully taking handfuls of dogfood and putting them into the cup we feed Patches with.  After it was halfway full, he turned and walked to Patches food dish.  I made Patches, who was giving me that “Are you sure this is ok?” look, sit and down.  Conor carefully picked the dogfood out of the cup handful by baby handful until it was empty.  He stepped back and looked at Patches.  I gave Patches the OK! and Patches had a brunch yesterday morning.  Conor happily put down the cup and continued to play elsewhere. 

Is that not the cutest thing????  You can probably hear Patches still howling “WOOHOO!!! SCORE!!!!” 

9:33:54 AM