And Now You Know the Rest of the Story
Senate Staffer Paul Thacker has been a panelist on POGO’s Congressional Oversight Training Sessions and a guest speaker for our Brown Bag Lunch Series. He recently wrote in with this pop culture commentary:
You may have seen ads for the Meryl Streep and Amy Adams movie called “Julie and Julia.” Everyone knows who Julia Childs is, but few know Julie Powell. Well, here goes…
About six years ago, I went out for drinks with a buddy, Eric Powell. Eric and I worked together at Discover Magazine and we met up at the Half King, which is a bar/pub sort of east of 10th Ave, somewhere in the twenties. We were shooting the breeze over some bourbon, talking journalism shop, when Eric told me about his wife. Julie was hating her job and had started a blog. Every night when she got home, she ran through another recipe from Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and then posted the results. If she drank too much while cooking, well, the posts were somewhat in their coherence.
I was never a fan of Childs, but as a freelancer whose workmates included a cat and three house plants, I kept the Food Network on during the day to keep my sanity. Plus, I was working at a restaurant part-time in the West Village, partly for extra money, but also just to meet people outside my housebound existence. We talked some more about his wife’s cooking when I told Eric that it seemed like a interesting story. Eric seemed a little uncertain at the time, but I thought it was great and pitched the story to an editor.
A few weeks later, I showed up at their apartment with a bottle of wine and interviewed Julie for the Christian Science Monitor. Four months later, Amanda Hesser did a similar story for the Times. As Eric later told me, “If you want to get a book contract, get a story in the Times.” The New York Times story kicked up a bidding war for Julie’s book, which eventually led to the current movie.
Probably the best thing about it all was eating that night at Eric and Julie’s. It was the first time I had eaten Beef Burgundy, a surprisingly easy recipe. I fell in love with that dish and have made it several times for dinner parties that I’ve thrown. The movie and book have gotten good reviews, but I’m sure that the movie will take great liberties with reality.
You can read Paul’s original article on Julie Powell here. Paul followed up with this addendum:
By the way, a friend just emailed and said that there’s a scene where the CSM reporter along with Childs’ editor cancel at the last minute while going to the Powell residence. I had totally forgotten that, but she did cancel. It was raining like crazy. But obviously, I didn’t. That’s the night I interviewed her for the story.
