I continue to read through Julie & Julia, and the other day I browsed through to the end of her blog trying to find that moment where everything took off for her. I still have just over a 100 pages to go in the book, but I have yet to find mention of when the book deal came to be.
Oddly enough, Paul Thacker wrote a story for the Christian Science Monitor of all places, about Julie’s project in April 2003. Actually, I just did a few minutes of digging only to find out that Paul and Julie’s husband Eric had talked about her project over drinks and Paul had suggested he write about what Julie was up to.
The interwebs.
From studying Julie’s blog and other research so far, it seemed the moment where her project really took off was when Amanda Hesser at the New York Times wrote a lengthy review of her work in August 2003 – just days before her year long blogging and cooking journey came to an end.
I’ve read some great tributes by other writers since Julie’s passing and if there is at least one consensus, it’s that she revolutionized food writing and made her followers (bleeders she called them), laugh and validated all of our imperfections.
It makes me sad that Julia Child didn’t think much of Julie’s work, but does that really matter? I am not sure Julie would be a fan of mine either where political and social beliefs are concerend anyway, although we share a profane vocabulary.
Irshad Manji, author of ‘Don’t Label Me’, talked about not having to be all-in on people and groups. I’m not all-in with Julie, but I certainly admire her way with words and how she says the icky stuff allowed.
Respect.