Julie Powell, writer who inspired ‘Julie & Julia’ movie, dies at 49

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Food writer Julie Powell, who inspired the film “Julie & Julia” (2009), in which a young woman challenged herself to prepare 524 recipes from Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) cookbook, has died at age 49. Eric Powell, the writer’s husband, told The New York Times that she died on October 26 after suffering cardiac arrest in New York.

The writer became famous for blogging with Julia Child’s cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” (1961), in which the famous writer teaches Americans how to cook like the French. became a pioneer in blogging with a more casual format, which was adopted by other bloggers, and the blog, where she cooked recipe by recipe with comments, became a book.

When Julie blogged, she was an aspiring writer working in a low-level administrative role in Lower Manhattan. At the time, she told The New York Times that she was about to turn 30 and had no career prospects. “One of those moments of panic [que estamos] cornered,” he said.

Around this time, she began cooking all 524 recipes from an old copy of the book, which belonged to her mother. Julie revealed to the newspaper that it was not easy for her, an inexperienced cook, to cook in a small loft. On the blog, Julie has written lengthy updates on the recipes with amusing rants about the difficulties in finding ingredients, disappointments and challenges.

Before it was a year old, Julie’s blog had reached 400,000 total page views and thousands of regular readers who followed the blogger to see if she would finish making the recipes on time. She reached a new audience who commented on the blog at a time when people became more interested in food, cooking and chefs.

Julie’s story made the pages of newspapers and inspired other amateur and professional food writers. The internet has democratized food and Julie, with her blog, was the forerunner who wrote about food without having gone to cooking school.

In 2005, the blog’s history became the book “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen”, which sold over a million copies, and was made into the movie “Julie & Julia”, starring Meryl Streep (Julia Child) and Amy Adams (Julie Powell).

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