Food

Hot, very hot.


Julia Child

More than a movie. The movie was Julie and Julia, a true story based on a blog. Julie decides to cook a recipe from Julia Child's Art of French cooking every day for a year, and blogs about it (http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/). This is not beans on toast cookery, she has to de-bone things and kill lobsters. There is a parallel story about Julia Child's life in France as she learns to cook and writes the book with her co-authors. A chick flick of course. I liked it. The casting was excellent, particularly Meryl Streep as Julia Child, Stanley Tucci as her husband and Jane Lynch as her sister. Jane Lynch is a chameleon, currently being rather evil in Glee.

That inspired me to read Julia Child's autobiography "My Life in France" and to get one of her very large cookery books "The Way to Cook" from the library. Both books are very readable. The autobiography (with a co-author) is closely followed in the movie, and shows Julia's high regard for her husband Paul. The recipe book has conversational notes all through, comments and suggestions and spells thing out very clearly. It tells you what pans and utensil you will need and doesn't assume the reader knows anything at all. The actual recipes are a little old fashioned but there is plenty in this book that would be useful. I learned about an interesting woman whose cooking lessons are part of America's heritage.



Food writers


That segues nicely into food writing. Nigel Slater is my favourite food writer. He's English and writes with a passion. When I first read his column I was convinced it was written by a woman, it was so sensual and evocative. Try "Real Fast Food" or "Real Cooking". Another comfort food advocate is the gorgeous (also English) Nigella Lawson. So attractive, so sensuous, so nice. She is named after her father, British politician Nigel Lawson (Nigella is also the botanical name for the blue flower commonly known as "love-in-a-mist"). I guess she takes after her mother in the appearance department. She has had some tragedy in her life and has carried on. She presents cooking shows ("Nigella Bites") which are so lovely and relaxed, usually ending them by coming downstairs in her dressing gown late at night to stand at the fridge door and eat the leftovers. Her food is easy and rich and yes, comforting. I wonder how she keeps her splendid figure. Her books "How to Eat" and "How to be a Domestic Goddess" are lots of fun. She is, indeed, a goddess and a rather upper class woman, but one feels she would be gracious and friendly to those of us on lower rungs of the social ladder.



Too hot to write more and too hot to cook. I actually got up at 6.00 am to bake a ham before the day got too hot. The kittens have come out to play now that it is cooling down a bit.