Cooking with Hollywood: Julie and Julia V

One of Julie's "sayings" in this movie that I hear often repeated is, "You can never have too much butter!" That one, however, I have to disagree with. When something is swimming in butter, it becomes a greasy, unattractive dish, not to mention the unnecessary nutrition and cholesterol issues. "Mounting" butter is the best way to add it. That means you add a bit at the end so that although you have minimized it, the delicious taste of the butter comes through.

Cooking with Hollywood: Julie and Julia IV

One of my favorite parts of this movie is the reaction of both women when they made a decision about what to do. Julie became obsessed with her project. She told her mother it was about "having a regimen...It gives you something you have to do, every day. Julia told Simone Beck that she "lept out of bed to get to school early". That's what goals do to you. It was the same with me. Suddenly I could get up at 5 am and get to school by 6, bright eyed and ready for action. I even did it on icy roads. Even that was an accomplishment. In all cases, we were encouraged to try new things at every bend. That's fulfillment.

Cooking with Hollywood: Julie and Julia III

I've been away for awhile, but am still committed to blogging! It has been so long since I've seen it that I decided to watch Julie and Julia again to refresh my memory. I can hardly believe it, but this is the third time I've watched it, which is going some from someone who has never seen any other movie twice. I was thinking about what it really is that attracted me so much to this movie and I think it can be summed up in one word... PASSION. For both women, a project was undertaken despite all odds, with no guarantees, but one that determined a personal sense of success or failure. Both persevered through the pain of rejection on many fronts until the sweet smell of victory was in the air.

It's always great to see someone accomplish something that they have really worked hard to achieve. For me, this movie was especially personal because I saw so much of myself in it. I went to culinary school because I finally could, not because I had to. The passion for cooking that was fed there grew until I also published a book. I could relate to all aspects of both projects... not being taken seriously,working harder than I had to and in some cases should have, the drive, the development of the passion, the inability to stop, etc. and finally, the day the books arrived.

Rejections are the hardest part of any project. In retrospect, tho, they cause us to show our real stuff. In the back of my mind was always an essay I read by Tom Clancy about publishing. Can you believe that he got 50 - yes, FIFTY - rejections for Hunt for Red October? It was said that it was too technical and no one would buy it. Just goes to show you that there's a time, place and purpose for just about everything.