Julie Powell and Julia Child

Ruth KimballJordanne LewisBetsy JohnsonNovember 29, 2010

Julie Powell

• Maiden name Foster• Raised in Austin, TX• Graduated from

Amherst College 1995• Double major writing

and theater• Government secretary

Homeland Security– Video 6:45

Julie Powell

• Married Eric Powell• Started blog 2002• Did not test her

recipes for her book• No formal training• Liked booze• Short – gained 20 lbs.

in the course of the blog

Julia Child

• Maiden name McWilliams

• Born in Pascedena, CA 1912

• Graduated from Smith College 1934

• Majored in History• Government

secretary O.S.S.

Julia Child

• Married Paul Child• Published MtAoFC 1961• Tested recipes multiple

times – 20 or more times

• Studied at Cordon Bleu in Paris for 1 yr.– Video 30:53

• Liked booze• Six feet tall

How Books Affected Careers

Julie Powell• Wrote another book

Cleaving – Bad Reviews

Julia Child• Started The French Chef

2 years after publishing MtAoFC

• Wrote and co-wrote many cookbooks

Julia Child and Public Television

• February 11, 1963 French Chef– Enlivening the kitchens and the palettes of

Americans forever– 200 shows on classical cooking– Became an icon of culinary television shows

Video Julia Child

Dan Akroyd SNL sketch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaASyRFXTj4&playnext=1&list=PL66B1FFC2E2CE90D2&index=3Julia Child and David Lettermanhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHX0pv8_JOE&feature=relatedJulia Child’s Chickenhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ohiUbQyDhk

Population and Income

1961• Population– 179, 323, 175

• Mean Family Income– $7,430

2005

• Population– 295, 507,000

• Mean Family Income– $51,680

Make-up of American Families

1961 Total Family Households

45,962Married Couple Families

39,335 87%Male Head, no Spouse

1,233 3%Female Head, no Spouse

4, 494 10%

2003Total Family Households

75,596Married Couple Families

57,320 76%Male Head, no Spouse

4,656 6%Female Head, no Spouse

13,620 18%

Technology in Kitchen 1948-1960

1946

1950’s 1956

1958 1960

Technology in Kitchen 1963-1997

1967 1971 1973

1994 1997

Portrayal of the American Family 1961

• Foldger’s Coffee Commercial

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ODl8ewGQk4

American Family 2000’s

Craig Claibourne New York Times Book Review of MtAoFC

• "Probably the most comprehensive, laudable, and monumental work on [French cuisine] was published this week, and it will probably remain as the definitive work for nonprofessionals . . . [It is] a masterpiece."

Interview with Julia Child Time Magazine 1966• For from the moment that Julia appears on the screen, sleeves

rolled above the elbow and blue denim apron about her waist, until her closing "Bon appetit," there is no telling what calamity may confront her.

• Even her failures and faux pas are classic. When a potato pancake falls on the worktable, she scoops it back into the pan, bats her big blue eyes at the cameras, and advises: "Remember, you're all alone in the kitchen and no one can see you."

• Again, when the apple charlotte that she was making began sagging, she patted it back together, reassured her viewers: "It will taste even better this way." Her cardinal rule for hostesses: "Never apologize.“

• Julia also insists that women should know their steers. In her zeal to demonstrate the various cuts, she has no hesitation in using her own body along with the meat chart to get the point across.

• Julia is just right for the times…he postwar travel boom brought millions of U.S. tourists back from Europe with their tastes broadened and sharpened by what they had eaten there. At the same time, a host of kitchen aids, from dishwashers, pressure cookers, blenders and deepfreeze units to the latest nonstick Teflon pans, were taking the drudgery out of cooking.

David Kamp New York Times ReviewJulie and Julia

• “When she's focused on the cooking itself, Powell shows signs of being one of our better, loopier culinary thinkers.”

• "Julie and Julia" still has too much blog in its DNA: it has a messy, whatever's-on-my-mind incontinence to it, taking us places we'd rather not go…Being subjected over and over again to images of your piled-up dirty dishes and backed-up plumbing (bodily and otherwise) only makes me want to put down your book. Stop it!”

• “Julie Powell willed herself out of that secretarial pool by thinking big; I wish that, for her print publishing debut, she hadn't thought so small.”

Sarah Chalfant Review from Publisher’s Weekly Julie and Julia

• “Some passages in the book are taken verbatim from the blog, but Powell expands on her experience and gives generous background about her personal life: her doting husband, wacky friends, evil co-workers.”

• “Her writing is feisty and unrestrained.”

• “Occasionally the diarist instinct overwhelms the generally tight structure and Powell goes on unrelated tangents, but her voice is endearing enough that readers will quickly forgive such lapses.”

Julie Powell Interview with Newsweek

• Unlike more modern pop-culture icons, whose every move is in the tabloids, Child remains something of a mystery figure. "She reflects what we want to find in her," says Powell.

• "Julia didn't create armies of drones, mindlessly equating her name with taste and muttering 'It's a good thing' under their minty breath. Instead she created feisty, buttery, adventurous cooks, always diving into the next possible disaster, because goddammit, if Julia did it, so could we."

Issues of the Time

1960’s• McCarthyism– Paul interviewed

• Cold War– Video 1:26:20-1:28:06

2000’s• 9/11 Aftermath– Julie’s company

• Iraq War

Nonfiction Bestsellers of 2005

• The Lost Painting- Johnathan Harr• Postwar- Tony Judt• The Year of Magical Thinking- Joan Didion

Bestsellers of 1961

• To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee• Pomp and Circumstance- Noel Coward• The Child Buyer- John Hersey

Movies of 2005

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire• Batman Begins• The 40 Year Old Virgin

Movies of 1961

• West Side Story• Breakfast At Tiffany’s• The Parent Trap

TV Shows of 2005

• Battlestar Galactica• The Office• Weeds

TV Shows of 1961

• The Flintstones• The Dick Van Dyke Show• I Love Lucy

Music of 2005

• Kelly Clarkson• Green Day• Rihanna• Usher• Nickelback

Music of 1961

• Patsy Cline • Elvis Presley

• Ray Charles

Works Cited1961 TV Fall Season. n.p. Web. 11 November 2010.“All Time Top Movies By Year 1961.” Top Movies By Year. Top Ten Reviews. Web. 11 November 2010.Bellis, Mary. “Josephine Cochran Inventor of the Dishwasher.” About.com: Inventors. n.p. 2010. Web. 7 November 2010. Chalfant, Sarah. Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. Publishers Weekly. 13 June 2005. Web. 7

November 2010.Child, Julia, and Alex Prud’homme. My Life in France. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.“Cleaving Memoir Interview.” Cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan. Web. 5 November 2010. Dedicated to Science and Research. GE: Imagination at Work. 2010. Web. 6 November 2010.Food: Everyone’s in the Kitchen. Time. 25 November 1966. Web. 7 November 2010. Gallawa, J. Carlton. “A Brief History of Microwaves.” Who Invented the Microwave? Microtech. 2010. Web. 6 November 2010.Kamp, David. “Julie and Julia: The Servantless American Cook.” Books. The New York Times. 2 October 2005. Web. 7 November

2010.Kantrowitz, Barbara. Food: The School of Julia. Newsweek. 3 October 2005. Web. 6 November 2010.KitchenDaily Editors. Twenty Cooking Tools and Technologies. KitchenDaily. 2010. Web. 6 November 2010.Macdonald, Moira. “Writer Julie Powell shares how she cooked a blog, a book and a movie deal, too.” Seattle Times. Seattle

Times. 2 August 2009. Web. 5 November 2010. “Most Popular Feature Films Released in 2005.” Year: 2005. IMDB. Web. 11 November 2010. Poniewozik, James. “Best of 2005: Television.” Entertainment. Time. 16 December 2005. Web. 11 November 2010.Powell, Julie. Julie and Julia. New York, NY: Back Bay Books, 2005. Print.Praise for…Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Random House. 1961. Web. 7 November 2010.Statistical Abstract of the United States. U.S. Census Bureau. Web. 6 November 2010.Statistical Abstracts 1951-1994. U.S. Census Bureau. Web. 6 November 2010.“The Ten Best Books of 2005.” Books. The New York Times. 11 December 2005. Web. 11 November 2010.The New York Times Bestseller List. The New York Times. 8 January 1961. Web. 11 November 2010. Top 100 Hits of 1961/Top 100 Songs of 1961. Music Outfitters. Web. 11 November 2010.Top 100 Hits of 2005/Top 100 Songs of 2005. Music Outfitters. Web. 11 November 2010.Who Invented Blogs? Yahoo Answers. 2007. Web. 6 November 2010.Who Invented the Food Processor? FoodProcessorsDirect.com. Web. 7 November 2010.