Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell

And here I go, on a self-indulgent happy bender back into food books. I wish you could see me now, grinning on my couch in my apartment, so cozy back in my food book addiction. 

So I read Julie & Julia...I picked it up at the library mostly because there's a picture of my egg beater on the cover (see below): 

Now, I have a strong affection for my egg beater...so I decided to judge a book by its cover and check this one out. I had also recently decided that it was about time I get back to my happy place filled with food books. 

I did not, though, take a break from reading cookbooks...I have been put in charge of the pumpkin pie at this year's Thanksgiving celebration (and by put in charge I mean asked to be put in charge) and I don't want to disappoint...so I've been testing recipes. I think I've found a good one, but please please please feel free to add a comment/e-mail me if you happen to know of a good recipe. 

But I digress. 

I read Julie & Julia this weekend...it's not a long read. It details the course of Julie Powell's life as she cooks her way through Julia Child's famous book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Volume I). She cooks her way through all of the recipes over the course of a year and blogs about her experiences, eventually compiling the blog entries into a book. You can check out her current blog at www.juliepowell.blogspot.com - but it's no longer about cooking as far as I can tell (and therefore, in my opinion, less worth reading). I want to take this opportunity to push you, once again, towards www.jennsylvania.com - it's really, really funny. Please go there now and see pictures of her pit bull Maisy. 

But I digress again. 

The book was interesting, definitely...although less about food than I had hoped when I picked it up. Powell details the events of her life, her husband's life, her friends lives during the course of her cooking year...which isn't a problem, per se, but just not what I was expecting. I'm rather surprised, in fact, that the book was placed with the other "food books" at the library (next to the cookbooks). Cooking is obviously the central theme of the book, and the whole reason it was written, but I feel like it, in the end, was really more about Powell's rediscovery of self than it was about the food she used to get there. Maybe I should be happier with this outcome, proudly touting this book as evidence that food is a worthwhile and potentially life-defining pursuit, but (and this is where I sound selfish) I care more about food than I do about Julie Powell and her mission to get out of her dead-end secretarial job. Just a thought. 

If you're looking for a true food book, look elsewhere (see other good food books listed in a previous post). If you're looking for a starter food book, check this one out. It's interesting, as I said above, evidenced by the fact that I did read it in two days instead of ignoring it for my Wii (another distraction that has recently strengthened its hold on me given my purchase of Super Mario Galaxy), but it's not filled with the same passion for food that I originally hoped for. 

The Food Life: Inside the World of Food with the Grocer Extraordinaire at Fairway by Steven Jenkins

And so it is revealed...my sick obsession with reading books about food. Seriously, put anything in front of me. Books about food, books about restaurants, books about culinary schools, even straight up cookbooks. I will read cookbooks from cover to cover even if I have zero intention of ever making any of the recipes. I spend a lot of time reading cookbooks (baking cookbooks specifically) but will not review them on this blog...as I understand that the obsession that envelops my life doesn't necessarily reach the lives of others (but if you want to know the names of a few good cookbooks let me know).

So. The Food Life. You might think that this is my sneaky way of getting a cookbook onto the blog, and you'd be right. This book does in fact contain recipes, but they are more footnotes than they are the actual subject matter of the book...and so I will indulge myself.

The book centers around the grocery store chain called Fairway Market in New York City. Fairway started with one location in Harlem and has expanded to four locations all across New York. Maybe I'm alone here, but it fascinates me to read about specialty food stores. I just realized with that sentence that it may be a very long time before I find another boyfriend.

Anyway, the book is about the development of Fairway from one location to the next, and the development of the idea of "specialty food" grocery stores in general. The reason I found this book to be so interesting - and so useful - is that Jenkins explains the entire culture and reasoning behind specialty food stores. He explains the heightened quality of goods available in this type of market. He broke down the Fairway Market structure to clearly show the reader that "specialty" does not necessarily have to mean "more expensive," and in doing so, identified the characteristics he looks for in quality items from olive oils to different types of cheese, educating the reader on what to look for in their own cities and local food stores.

This book came with multiple side effects:

1. Lessened hatred/fear of New York City - I assure you that I have a very mature and thorough understanding of the city, but I maintain that NYC is not as great as everyone claims...mostly because it is loud and smelly. Anyway, as I consume food book after food book, I have come to realize that they all have a common theme...aside from The French Laundry in California, most if not all of the country's great restaurants/food outlets are in New York City. This makes a little part of me die. This book, though, is the first that made me actually consider giving up my stand against NYC and joining its fold...until I realized that I would be moving across country to live near a supermarket (please reference above statement re: not finding a boyfriend for a long time).
2. Heightened desire to remain in my apartment reading instead of socializing with other members of my species
3. Sudden intense disdain for all food in my apartment/supermarket/city/state/time zone.

In short - the book is like pornography for foodies. If you love food, you'll love the book. Otherwise, you'll probably just think I'm insane.

Other good food books you should check out:

Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch

ANYTHING BY RUTH REICHL. I tore through Tender at the Bone, Garlic and Sapphires, and Comfort me with Apples. Ruth Reichl is the first author who has ever caused me to be ANGRY with her for not writing more books after I finished her last.

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (Vintage) by Bill Buford (centering around Mario Batali's restaurant Babbo in NYC)

The Seasoning of a Chef: My Journey from Diner to Ducasse and Beyond by Doug Psaltis and Michael Psaltis

More to come.