Julie & Julia & Boeuf Bourguignon

I was lucky enough to be invited to a pre-screening of Julie & Julia last week, along with heaps of other food bloggers. I really enjoyed the film, it's a combination of the book-from-a-blog "Julie and Julia" and Julia Child's autobiography "My Life in France". While Julie is a bit of a whingey, self-obsessed loser who doesn't deserve her angelic husband, the story of Julia and her lifelong love affair with food, France and her husband Paul is truly beautiful. Meryl Streep's performance is just uttter genius. I can see this one ending up on my DVD shelf with Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman!

I'm now reading My Life in France on the commute into London and have almost finished it in a matter of days. Julia's energy and zest for life really comes through in her writing. Of course now I want to go and live in Paris...

Being British, I wasn't as familiar with Julia's work as those across the pond seem to be, so I decided to try one of her recipes for myself. As luck would have it, Julia's publisher has the recipe for her signature Boeuf Bourguignon on its website. I haven't replicated it here as you really need to read it in Julia's words to get the full effect! If you would like to have a go yourself you can find the pdfs here:

http://knopfdoubleday.com/marketing/cooking/BoeufBourguignon.pdf

The recipe was quite a bit of work, but the little tips and tricks Julia gives help you achieve a truly delicious result. Even the method of sauteeing mushrooms was a revelation to me. I know which cookbook I will be buying next....

So, in summary

Julia - yes! yes! yes!
Julie - not so much