Author Archives: Jennie

My Week with Julia: Part One

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I’ve always had this peculiar behavior; I like to read by theme or by sequence.

Every now and then I read through all my Cat Who books or my Dick Francis novels in chronological order. You’re probably already sick of hearing about my books about France, but too bad. I got a bunch more for my birthday. It’s my blog and I’ll write about France if I want to. 🙂

I watched Julie and Julia again the other day and decided it was time to do another theme party of books and movies.

First I decided to read Julie Powell’s follow-up memoir, Cleaving, to see if she still had the magic. I had heard that it wasn’t as good as Julie and Julia and that Powell had kind of disappeared into the literary wasteland of has-been authors. When I Googled her, the most recent hit is from 2009, and the last time she posted on her blog was in 2010. Ouch!

Julie and Eric on a good day in the kitchen.Image Credit

The complete title of the 2009 book pretty much tells its whole story: Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession. It truly is a story of obsession following the screaming success of Julie’s blog and Julie and Julia — of Julie’s tormented affair with “D”, of Eric’s philandering, and of how Julie found herself in her next new adventure, learning how to butcher meat. Published before the highly successful movie came out, Cleaving is an intimate story (maybe too intimate) of a woman trying to reinvent herself and build a future.

The book gets lots of bad reviews for its very specific telling of the inside picture of butchering and of Julie’s bad girl sex life. After getting over the structure which requires the reader to make pretty tenuous links between the cleaving of a marriage and the cleaving of an animal’s flesh and innards, I came to love Julie’s obsessions.

What we found endearing about Julie Powell in the movie Julie and Julia was that Amy Adams and Nora Ephron made Julie look kinda quirky and cute, but really, who chooses to cook her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year?  I don’t think Julia Child was right when she suspected Powell of trying to get publicity riding on Child’s name; Julie is just that obsessive, and it shows in Cleaving. And most of the time it’s just plain — all right, I’ll go there — verging on craziness.

On the other hand, Powell’s prose is just plain good. I found myself caring about how to create a crown roast and how to use a band saw correctly. If you’re a foodie, she may well hook you in as she did me. There’s a lot of visits to restaurants and food industry insider information and I just ate it up — figuratively, of course.

So do I think you should read Cleaving? Yes, if you are a foodie and loved Julie and Julia. It’s the flip side of a very interesting woman, with a little hot sauce thrown in.

And then there’s the other flip side — Nancy Verde Barr’s memoir entitled Backstage with Julia. 

This is a really fun book if you care about Julia Child and her impact on the cooking world. Even Barr’s use of her middle name is due to the sagacity of Julia Child; when she found out that Barr’s mother was Italian, she told Barr to use her full name to give her cooking more credence. And that’s just one little story that appears in this loving look back at a phenomenal woman.

Backstage with Julia is a set of fond memories packaged together in a book that cannot help but endear itself to you if you are a foodie. Nancy Barr served as Julia Child’s production assistant and travel companion from 1980 until Child’s death in 2004. When she got the chance to work with Child — already a culinary icon — someone told her to keep a diary. She didn’t, but apparently working with Julia Child has enough emotional impact to sear the memories in one’s brain.

What was fun about this book for me was the parallels to the Julie and Julia movie. Nora Ephron based much of her script for the Julia parts on Child’s memoir (with Alex Prud’homme), My Life in France. Although Backstage with Julia tells of Julia’s success in the United States and her media empire, there are many memories that Barr recounts via Child that are recognizable to the movie fan.

Julia’s love story with Paul Child also plays itself out here. In 1980, when Nancy Barr first began working with Julia Child, Paul Child had already begun to have the small strokes and memory issues that plagued his later years. It didn’t matter to Julia; Paul was an integral part of her success and he went everywhere with her.

The scene in Julie and Julia showing Paul and Julia in the bathtub for their annual Valentine message was real, and in Barr’s retelling of this story, the reader can feel the humor and the love shared.

Both of these books are about dreams — Powell’s with finding herself and Barr’s amazing chance to work with and become a close friend of Julia Child. They are also really interesting to read, if you are the person who will find fun in knowing more about three fascinating women — Powell, Barr, and la divine Child. I thought this quote from Powell’s book really summed up why I wanted to share these two books with you. It’s fun — you get me — and since you keep reading my blog, you must enjoy sharing with me.

You share things with the people who want you to share them. Who get it. Otherwise, where’s the fun?

You’ll have to excuse me now; I need to roast a chicken. Bon appetit!

Want more Jennie and Julia? Check out my previous posts about Julia Child here and here.

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Olympics in Transition

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Do we want our news real-time or prime-time?

We’ve been a transitional society for a while now, but it seems as though the Olympics coverage is putting our unease with technology out there for all to see. The American I-want-it-now instant gratification-need-to-know and our desire to experience the thrills of the Olympic games “as they happen” are at war with each other.

There seems to be an assumption on the part of NBC that everyone already knows the event results and so it’s okay to intermingle current news with primetime replays of the events. “Everyone” must be getting the results on their computers and smart phones.

The change in the number of smart phones with instant access to Mr. Internet since the last Olympics in 2008 must be astronomical.

Four years ago, I had clumsy access to the internet on my phone and never used it. Music Man didn’t have any internet access. Now we both have smart phones that link us to everything in seconds. I love the instant access and I hope I never have to go back to the old school ways of getting my news.

But our access comes with a dilemma. I ran across this article from the New Yorker and I think it presents the issue well (in a sarcastic way that tickles my fancy, of course).

P.S. Don’t click into this link if you don’t want to know what happened in the Women’s All-Around on Thursday.

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Cheese, Glorious Cheese!

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I’m on a brief hiatus while I enjoy my out-of-town company, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this wonderful post about the Roquefort region in France.

Our House in Provence is one of my favorite finds among the French bloggers I follow; Michel lives in the United States with his family and also owns a home in Provence. I love the travelogues that are presented and every story makes me more and more eager to experience Provence for myself!

People either love or hate “moldy” cheese; does this photo of aging Roquefort make you hungry? Or do you hate it?

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Friday’ Rant about Facebook

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Any time you want to yell back at me, just refer back to the title; I promised you a rant and rant I shall be doing.

I’ve been seeing a lot of “cleaning out my friends” posts on Facebook recently.

I am cleaning up my Facebook friend list. Please let me know if you wish to remain active by answering… with Yes please.

It made me think about why I would want to eliminate friends from Facebook and about whom I would eliminate. Surely one can pick and choose for herself whether or not to continue being “friends” with someone in her life.

The social media platform provided by Facebook gives me a  look at what people in my life are doing and I really enjoy and appreciate updates — even the ones that tell me someone isn’t feeling well and has retreated under the covers or has checked in at Starbucks. I’m glad to see that all is normal in that friend’s life and things are progressing as usual. It’s not stalking; it’s caring! 🙂

And then there’s the obvious missing comma between Yes and please. Enough to drive me crazy.

I’m also pretty tired all of the photos people are posting showing old-school household equipment, such as a manual ice-cube tray with the flip lever.

I’m finding myself increasingly annoyed by these photos. Nostalgic or of historical import? I’m a fan of both, but glorifying these objects seem silly to me, although this blogger does bring up a good point about using stainless steel over plastic trays if one doesn’t have a built-in ice maker in the fridge. I REMEMBER the fractured ice cubes and chunks that come out of these trays. I’ll stick with my auto-cuber in my freezer, thank you, and I don’t want to wade through junk like this to get to the nuggets of information you are actually sharing about your life — the ones I want to see.

Political crap? OMG, will you stop already?

It’s one thing to post a thoughtful article which allows the Facebook friend to decide to read or not. One of my relatives curates and shares lots of political articles, and his commenters are both supportive and antagonistic about the positions presented. I love that. I MADE THE CHOICE to read it.

Please don’t just slap up your unresearched and sensational opinion about something. Link the article where you found it so that I can make an informed decision for myself. You claim to be patriotic and looking out for the best in our country. Isn’t being an informed voter important to our democratic process? Save your inflammatory rhetoric for your friends who already agree with you. I promise; it’s not changing anyone’s mind, and certainly not mine.

These links to other sites that people are putting up also drive me to the nuthouse.

Yesterday a Facebook “friend” posted a photo link of an artist’s rendering of Jesus bleeding on the cross. Really, was that totally necessary? I get that you want to proselytize about your personal faith and I support your right to do it. But can we think a little more carefully about how such a photo will affect your reader?

At the risk of you defriending me, I’m also pretty tired of your animal photos. But that’s just me; everyone else likes them. 🙂

What I do love about Facebook is the personal photos.

Among the pictures of  little kids doing cute things and adults doing things they probably shouldn’t be putting on Facebook, my friends share photos of their vacations, photos of their beloved relatives, and photos of interesting ephemera that they find along their way. I love seeing their point of view, and I learn something every day about new camera applications and photography techniques.

I’m closing today with a photo a friend took in St. Louis. Yes, there’s a little gentle political sarcasm involved, but this is what I want to see on Facebook.

Something that actually makes me think.

I am the Queen after all, and I can make my own rules.

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Flower Stories: More Orchids

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I’ve been sitting with a friend in the hospital, providing moral support and acting as another pair of eyes and ears for the family when they can’t be there.

Our group of friends sent this beautiful orchid plant to the hospital. Absolutely gorgeous all on its own, but you know I can’t resist playing with the image.

First I took the photo with the built in camera on my iPhone 4 with no applications. It’s interesting how the hospital green background — why are hospitals always green?– turned into blue. I didn’t do anything to the photo.

Then I was demonstrating to my friend how the different photo apps work on the iPhone. For this one, I used Instagram and just took a photo against her hospital tray. I showed her how I can blur out an ugly background very easily. It’s not quite in focus, but I could have gotten it in focus if I took a little more time. I was just playing to keep my friend occupied. 🙂

I’ve taken the blue background photo and applied some saturation, which makes the color even more amazing in this photo. Which do you like better?

Since I was intrigued by the dilemma presented by Leanne Cole on her photography blog, I thought I’d play with these images a little bit. I encourage you to visit Leanne and her beautiful images; is the amount of processing we can easily do with digital images cheating or is it just another form of art?

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Lessons Learned While Being a Pioneer Woman for a Day

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The unthinkable happened yesterday. I woke up and my electricity was gone.

It’s been the summer of storms and many of us have been without power. I was actually lucky to only lose power for about ten hours. I woke up yesterday to no AC, no overhead fan, no refrigerator, very little hot water in my electric hot water heater, and no electronic pilot lights on my stove. Apparently it came on for about four hours during the day while I was out, but went back off from 2:30 to 8:52 PM. I know this because my DVR went back on at exactly 8:52 and started recording Design Star — for seven minutes of the finale.

We live in a neighborhood of disparate entities who don’t know each other very well.

We jokingly say that we live on the wrong side of the viaduct, even though there’s only a neighborhood street separating us and the active neighborhood just one block north. The house next door, the largest on the block, has been abandoned for four years after the deaths of my neighbors. It stands as a looming castle separating my end of the block from the other end. I just recently met the neighbor who lives on the other side of Oksana’s house; this is our tenth summer here (and I haven’t seen her since). The house next to her is a rental owned by a developer just waiting for the economy to pick up so that he can tear it down and build a McMansion, and those people recently moved out, too. We have two houses across the street where the owners apparently wish they lived on the other side of the “viaduct” and don’t socialize with our side. At the end of the block we have the man who grew up in the home we own, and since he is an appraiser, he most likely knows very well the shape our home was in when they sold it to us — not quite the condition they claimed it to be. He probably doesn’t want to be our best friend either.

Life without power brought out the best in our little neighborhood.

Thank goodness, our neighbors in the other two houses across the street are the salt of the earth. Kind and generous with their help, we work together to keep the empty house looking occupied. We take turns shoveling the snow and mow the grass in front. We keep an eye out for each other. They still had power all day, so among the three houses, we cobbled together five extension cords and strung them across the street so that we could plug-in our refrigerator. Since I no longer needed the big bag of ice left over from a recent party, I gave it to the neighbors behind us who were filling coolers with the contents of their refrigerators. We were a neighborhood, albeit a small one comprised of four houses.

I have always wanted a house with a front porch where I could sit and watch the world go by, connecting with my neighbors.

Life without front porches and porch-sitting has negatively affected our sense of community and I miss it. I sat outside in my lawn chair all evening, ostensibly watching the cord across the street. The lady with the Sheltie dog stopped to talk about the power outage; in ten years, she has never once said hello before this. Several walkers and joggers noticed the cord, successfully avoided tripping over it, and gave cheery greetings as they passed by. With our neighbors, we talked outside on the street and on our front porch into the evening. I lit some candles. I might have even had a glass of wine… or two or three. Until the electricity went back on.

The lights going on was a literal and figurative signal to retreat.

Back into our air conditioning. Back to our televisions and computers. Back to our hermetically sealed lives inside our homes. As much as I wanted to go inside and cool down, I also wanted to stay outside and keep the party going. It was getting late and people have things to do; I get it, but our day of being pioneers made me a little nostalgic for the old days of my youth on Garland Road when we sat on the rocking chairs on the front porch and the most difficult thing we had to do was avoid the mosquitoes.

Didn’t keep me from turning on the overhead fan, though, and sleeping comfortably in the AC.

I’m not really much of a pioneer. I like my modern conveniences. I’m going to have to track down an encore play of Design Star — and don’t tell me what happened! I’m a day behind on laundry. I really missed my computer, although having my trusty iPhone kept me in the loop all day. I’m back in the busy groove. Yesterday already seems like a dream — albeit one that was just a little uncomfortable.

There are limits to my nostalgia.

Food Cult: Veggie Tales

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So we tried a new vegetable last night.

We’re trying to be both adventurous and healthy. I have heard rave reviews of braised fennel.

Indeed, fennel has an anise taste all its own. I love black licorice, so I figured, how bad could it be?

I followed the recipe directions.

I braised it in my trusty Le Creuset pot in olive oil. I even added cucumber slices to braise them, too, a la Julia C. I used white wine and sweet fruity vinegar to make the sauce. It should have been good.

Yet both were kind of boring. Meh.

Even Music Man, who usually applauds my attempts to give him healthy and low-calorie meal choices, said that it wasn’t a keeper.

On to broccoli dip. I promise I’ll use fat-free ingredients wherever possible. 🙂

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