A New TV Series from Julia Child's Old Kitchen in Provence

Today the Magnolia Network launched a seven-part "docu-series" called La Pitchoune: Cooking in France, about the Courageous Cooking School, set in Julia Child’s former home in the South of France. Episode #1 is now streaming on the Magnolia app, HBO Max, Discovery Plus and other channels. 

It's a great story! In 2015, Makenna Held happened on an article in the New York Times (“The House that Julia Built”) about La Pitchoune, the home that Julia and Paul Child created on a former potato patch in 1966. The land, on a peaceful hillside not far from Grasse, was owned by Simone (Simca) Beck and her husband Jean Fischbacher. Simca was Julia’s close friend and her collaborator on the Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes I and II.

The idea was that once Julia and Paul had no use for the house, they would return it to Simca and Jean. In the meantime, it quickly become the Childs' cherished getaway and a magnet for food world luminaries such as James Beard, MFK Fisher and Richard Olney.

And now it was up for sale--listed with Sotheby's at €880,000--and back in the US, Makenna was completely smitten. “I fell in love with the heart cut-out shutters, the gorgeous ivy walls, and OF COURSE the kitchen,” she remembers.

Remarkably, Julia’s kitchen (with its now-famous pegboard system that Paul Child designed) was still largely intact “since the last meal she cooked there, a typically Provençale boeuf en daube, in 1992,” according to the Times.

“You could almost say we’re selling the kitchen with the property thrown in,” Alexander Kraft at Sotheby’s said at the time.

Makenna knew right away that “La Peetch,” as Julia called it, would make the perfect cooking school…partly because someone else had already done it. Another American named Kathie Alex (who had come to France in 1979 to take cooking classes with Simca and work as a stagiaire at the legendary Moulin de Mougins) had rented the house and taught cooking there starting in 1993. Kathie bought the property in the late 1990s and was now ready to sell.

Makenna--who describes herself as an entrepreneur, artist and business mentor—wasn’t able to fly to France to check it out herself so she sent a potential co-investor in her stead. They put in an offer and “six months later I was in France!” she remembers. “I left everything behind and more or less moved to the South of France, never having been anywhere near the Riviera!" 

"Yes, I already spoke French,” she continues. “No, I was not a chef. Just a very adept home cook who had a big idea that recipes are great in books but aren’t a great way to teach.”

She bought the property site unseen in 2015. Since then, a lot has happened for Makenna including a divorce, a new marriage and the birth of a daughter named Magnolia. And of course the launch and success of the Courageous Cooking School program which she calls an immersive and (mostly) recipe-free experience. Today she runs the business with her husband Chris Nylund and their “best friends” Kendall and Ross Lane. Kendall is the executive chef while Ross is the beverage director and “the fixer of all the things.”

People who want to experience La Peetch can do it three different ways. You can sign up for The Courageous Cooking School (a five-night, all-inclusive learning retreat), book it as a catered vacation rental (with multi-course meals catered by the staff) or, off season, rent it with family or friends and enjoy “full access to our entire batterie de cuisine and no one to bother you so you can cook up a storm!”

And now, thanks to producer Citizen Pictures (and Makenna’s unwavering belief in the project), you can see the whole delicious story unfold on TV…a poignant twist considering Julia’s own legendary TV career, which began in 1962 with her Emmy-winning series The French Chef.  

To read how coincidence, luck, "strategized opportunities" and good old perseverance finally paid off in making this show happen, see Makenna’s Instagram post here.

And then...don’t be surprised if there’s another series one day soon because Makenna just announced that she just bought a restaurant. She's sharing no details yet about what or where but stay tuned!

For More Info...

The original New York Times article is here and the story I wrote when Makenna first bought the house is here. 

You can follow Makenna in a lot of places online but some good places to start are here, here and here. 

To learn about Magnolia Network and see the new show in your country, go here and here.

Finally, to see the amazing roster of other shows produced by Citizen Pictures, click here.

Group Events with Space Available in October

 A free financial forum for expats will be held at Chateau La Coste, the very-unique, very-beautiful wine domaine not far from Aix. 

Two scenes from the market in Aix. Join a local chef/cooking instructor for an insiders' tour.

The Luberon village of Gordes at sunrise. Ok, so you won't see the sunrise on the Luberon Foodie Bike Tour...but you'll see tons of other gorgeous scenery...and taste some terrific artisan foods.

On Sunday Oct 9, there's a charity lunch and yard sale in St. Remy to benefit the Busoga Trust, which builds wells (like this one) in Uganda.

In an 18th-centry farmhouse in Tarascon, join an Oct 15 small-group cooking class followed by dinner.

In legendary Chateauneuf-du-Pape, learn about the local wines in this cellar dating from the 12th and 13th centuries....then enjoy lunch prepared by a top local chef. 

Two spots remain in a writers retreat taking place at Julia Child's former house in Provence. The dates are Oct 16 to 23.

Rosé wines and goat cheese: two of the four food groups in Provence! You'll enjoy both on the Foodie Tuesday walking tour in St. Remy, October 18 or 25.

In Uzes, who could resist a market-shopping trip with the chef, followed by a cooking class and lunch?

If you’ll be in Provence in October...or are still mulling on a trip...here are some special group activities (market tours, cooking classes, wine tastings, a writers’ retreat, a luncheon for a great cause and more) that still have space available. Joining a group gives you access to activities you might not be able to enjoy otherwise. Plus, you'll almost certainly pay less than you would if going it alone. And sometimes a group is just more fun, right? I also stuck in one free event (on Oct 6) that will interest foreigners already living part or full time in France...and those of you considering it. All of the events below are in English...I hope you find something you'd love to do!

Thursday Oct 6: La Tour de Finance, a free financial forum for expats, will be held at the gorgeous winery Château La Coste, in Le Puy Sainte-Réparade, ten minutes north of Aix. From 9:30 am to about 2 pm, five presentations will tackle how to make the most of your assets in France, international payments, mortgages, pensions, taxes and wealth management. The forum brings together key players who assist expats settling or already living here…and provides a nice opportunity to socialize and share your experiences with others. There will be a free buffet lunch and plenty of time for questions. The Tour de Finance is sponsored by Currencies Direct (FX currency brokers) and Spectrum (independent financial advisors), but they’ve promised me it’s not designed to overtly promote either company. Walk-ins will be welcome but reservations are appreciated. To book or for questions, click here or email: sam.h@currenciesdirect.com. *Note: If you’ve never visited the 600-acre wine domaine Chateau La Coste, definitely plan to walk the grounds; see the privately commissioned collection of sculpture and architectural works; and perhaps even take a peek at the brand-new hotel Villa la Coste, with 12 of 25 suites now finished. Tickets for the art and architecture walk can be purchased on site. 

Thursday Oct 6, Tuesday Oct 11 or Wednesday Oct 12. A Luberon Foodie Bike Tour! Choose your bike--road bike, hybrid or electric bike--and then off you go on a glorious full-day adventure in the Luberon. Depending on the day of the week, your route might include a local market, an olive mill, a goat farm for a tasting of fresh goat cheeses, an ancient bread bakery still in use, a studio making superb confiture, the winery made famous in Peter Mayle's movie A Good Year and a tasting of truffle products. (Turns out our English-speaking bike guide is a chef too, with 20 years experience working in Provence and a Michelin star for pastry on his CV. So ask all the questions you like: he knows everything about the local foods!) Plus you'll experience some of the top sites in the Luberon such as the Abbaye de Senanque, The Chateau of the Marquis de Sade and the historic hilltowns of Gordes, LaCoste, Bonnieux, Menerbes and Oppede le Vieux. Taste wonderful artisan foods, go at whatever pace feels perfect to you and enjoy perfect fall biking weather. Total cycling is about 60 km or 38 miles but that's flexible. The day starts in Bonnieux around 8:30 am and ends about 5 pm. Price: Cost: 175€ per person. Price includes bike rental, helmets, market tastings, artisanal visits and tastings, restaurant lunch and any museum entry fees. To book: juliemautner@aol.com.

Friday Oct 7 or Friday Oct 14: Join this popular morning walking tour to discover the hidden corners and wonderful food merchants of Aix. En route, you’ll learn a bit of history and find out what gives Aix its special personality. Plus, your charming guide, a local chef/cooking instructor, will also discuss the French way of life and art de vivre, bien sur! Indian Summer will be in full swing so the markets will be overflowing with late-harvest heirloom tomatoes and the sweetest Muscat grapes, for example. This 2.5-hour tour includes all tastings at historic food merchants and in the market, a stop for coffee, a cheese and wine tasting as well as seasonal recipes, a map and restaurant suggestions which are handed out at the end. Eight participants max. Price: 65€ per person. To book: juliemautner@aol.com. 

Sunday Oct 9: Lucy Bakr holds regular fundraising events in Provence for the Busoga Trust, a UK-based charity building wells in rural Uganda, providing clean water for drinking, cooking and sanitation. Lucy’s next event is an all-day yard sale/brocante from 10 am to 4 pm, with a homemade lunch for anyone who wants to join in at 12:30. She hasn’t chosen the menu yet but her meals are always simple, colorful and delicious. Over the years I’ve made some great new friends at Lucy’s table. Lunch costs 20€ per person; all revenues from the sale, raffle and lunch go to Busoga Trust. For the yard sale, just show up at 1 ave. Baltus in St. Remy. To reserve your place for lunch—or to donate something for the sale-- email: lucydavid@bakr.fr. 

Saturday Oct 15. Meet in Châteauneuf-du-Pape at noon for an introduction to the wines of the region with a master sommelier. It's held in a vaulted cellar dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, located at the top of the village, right by the church...in a magical, candle-lit space that once stored wines for the Popes when they were based in Avignon. Your host is a charming raconteur who speaks terrific English…and he loves to make the wines come alive with tasting tips and tales about the personalities behind each domaine. The tasting is followed by lunch, prepared by one of the top chefs in the region. The lunch ends around 2:45 pm and the package costs 100 € per person. The vibe is good fun...not serious! If you need transport, I’m happy to try to arrange it for you. To book: juliemautner@aol.com.

Saturday Oct 15. In Tarascon, 15 minutes west of St. Remy, a small group will gather at 5 pm for a cooking class followed by dinner with wine in a beautifully restored 18th-century mas (farmhouse). If you wish, you can meet at the Hotel Gounod in St. Remy at 4:45 pm and follow the others to Tarascon. The evening ends at roughly 9:30 pm and the class/dinner costs 120€ per person. If you need transport, I’m happy to try to arrange it for you. To book: juliemautner@aol.com.

Sunday Oct 16 to Sunday Oct 23. Due to a cancellation, there are two spots left in this food-writing retreat, to be held at Julia Child's old farmhouse, between Valbonne and Grasse, 30 km from the Nice Airport. Your instructor will be Betsy Andrews (poet, writing teacher, former executive editor at Saveur and current editor-at-large at Organic Life). Price: $2550 per person includes instruction, mentoring, housing and all meals except two dinners. To learn more about the workshop, click here or inquire directly to: nicole@cooknscribble.com. For more about the house and its new owners, see my recent story here. Food writer Julia Moskin recently spent a week cooking in the house and wrote about it for the New York Times here.

Tuesday Oct 18 or Tuesday Oct 25. Foodie Tuesday! St. Remy is filled with artisanal food producers, working in traditional ways, keeping local food traditions alive. And luckily many of them have shops and workshops, right in the heart of the village. Rendezvous at the Tourist Office at 10 am...and then we hit the rue running! Staying in the heart of the village (with minimal walking) we’ll roam from shop to shop, tasting homemade chocolates, cookies, nougat, flavored salts, honey, olive oils, tapenades, confitures and more. Then we'll move on to a cheese tasting, enjoyed with a glass of one of one of our favorite local wines.  Along the way you'll get a taste of the rich history of this cobblestoned village ...and a glimpse into real local life from your charming and knowledgeable guide. The tour ends around 12:30 and we'll happily recommend a restaurant for lunch. Price: 70€ per person for adults, 50€ for ages 12 to 18 and 30€ for kids 6 to 12. Kids under 6 are welcome to join the party free, as long as they're fearless and willing to taste! To book: juliemautner@aol.com.

Wednesday Oct 19 or Wednesday Oct 26.  This popular cooking school in the beautiful village of Uzès has a few spaces available in their “French Market Class.” The day starts at the glorious outdoor market, with the chef as your guide. Learn to select seasonal produce, enjoy chatting with local producers and be part the atmosphere of a typical French market. Back at the school, you’ll create a three-course menu with the chef’s guidance and instruction. Wine and cheese will round out the meal...and a perfect day in Uzès. Price: 150€ per person. To book: juliemautner@aol.com.

Sunday Oct 23 and Sunday Nov 6. Popular cooking classes in English are offered at the Les Halles indoor food market in Avignon, by an American chef with 20 years of experience cooking in some of the finest restaurants and hotels in Provence. Class starts at 9:30 am when you'll shop the market with the chef and buy the ingredients for the menu, always based around Provencale dishes but with lots of improv. Around 10:30 am, you'll start preparing the appetizer, main course and dessert. At noon, you'll be ready for a nice glass of local wine, followed by lunch...the meal you've prepared, of course! The class ends around 1:30 or when the market shuts down shortly thereafter. Price: The market tour, class, meal and wine  is 100€per person. To book: juliemautner@aol.com.

Julia Child's Provence House is For Rent

Now that it's possible to rent Julia Child's old house in Provence, it's only a matter of time until someone settles into that famous kitchen, whips up some delicious new recipes and publishes a cookbook titled In Julia's Provençal Kitchen or Channeling Julia or something similar.

From the moment I heard that Sotheby's had listed the house for sale (asking price: €880,000), I had a half-real, half-ridiculous fantasy of buying it and transforming it into a cooking school. And now that's exactly what Makenna and Yvonne (Evie) Johnston have done. They swept in, snapped it up and announced they'll be offering week-long "courageous cooking" workshops there, for six people at a time, in 2017.

In the meantime they're renting the house out via Airbnb, as of June 13, 2016.  Which means that alone or in a group, you could fulfill that classic foodie fantasy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in Julia's actual kitchen! Or, of course, write your own master work. When one of her students spied the house on Airbnb, food writer Molly O'Neill quickly booked it--along with another next door--for two one-week writers' retreats in October. (Molly is a former NY Times food columnist, author of six books, a multiple James Beard Award winner and founder of LongHouse Food Revival. For info: molly@cooknscribble.com.)

I'm so delighted that Julia's old digs--the summer home she loved so much--will continue to be a magnet for French food- and wine-lovers!

In reality this isn't the first time the house will be used as a cooking school.  In 1993, Kathie Alex, who knew and worked for Julia, took it over and ran a program there called Cooking with Friends in France.  She put it on the market in November 2015.

The story beyond the house--how Julia and Paul Child came to have it, who hung out with them there, why it was important to the whole American food revolution--has been well documented so I won't go too deeply into that here.  (If  the topic interests you, you'd love Julia's book My Life in France and as well as Provence 1970 by Luke Barr, which you can read about here.)

The house is called La Pitchoune ("the little one") but everyone calls it La Pitch or La Peetch. It was built in 1963, on a property belonging to Simone Beck, one of Julia's original cookbook collaborators. M.F.K. Fisher and James Beard were frequent guests. It's set amongst the olive groves near the villages of Châteauneuf and Plascassier,  not far from Cannes and Grasse.  (Not that Châteauneuf...but one of many villages with the same name.)

Makenna and Evie say that La Peetch Ecole de Cuisine will be more than just a cooking school. It will also welcome high-end retreats, family experiences, food and wine journeys and more. 

The Airbnb listing calls it "a space to cook, commune, explore and walk in the footsteps of the culinary greats." On Facebook they call it "A Center for Food, Culture and Community." 

Evie, a former U.S. Air Force captain who left the military in 2014,  is now studying at the International Culinary Center in New York. Makenna, a business strategist and life coach, will train at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where Julia earned Le Grand Diplôme in 1951. (Like Julia did, Makenna graduated from Smith College in Northampton, MA.) 

The house has three antique-filled bedrooms, a sitting room, gardens, a pool...and of course that famous kitchen, which is virtually intact. Even Julia's pegboard is still there, the one Paul made and painted with outlines so Julia knew exactly which implements went where. The only thing missing is Julia's beloved white La Cornue stove, which now belongs to that other famous American cookbook author and cooking teacher in Provence, Patricia Wells. 

So of course I had to ring up Patricia to ask how she got Julia's stove.  "When the time came for Paul and Julia to give up La Pitchoune," she told me, "I asked her if I could buy it and she said no. Then she changed her mind and said I could have it as a gift, as long as I replaced it. So that’s what we did! We went to Darty, bought a new stove, went to her house, took the La Cornue and replaced it with the new one, which I believe is still the one in the house."

The La Cornue has two gas burners, a side burner where you can set a series of pots and a small, single gas oven. If you have Patricia's most-recent book, The French Kitchen Cookbook,  you'll see it in there. "The oven is bit cantankerous," Patricia reports, "and it's very difficult to adjust the heat so we don't use it often. But we definitely use the cooktop with our students, who of course love to cook on it. I always joke that having Julia's stove is a bit like having Freud's couch!"

As to what Julia would say about all this, I have no idea. I met her a few times over the years at food-world events but didn't know her. So I turned to someone who did,  my old pal Bob Spitz. Bob is the author of Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child and he's currently putting final touches on the script for a one-woman show of Dearie, which will open on Broadway early next year.

"Julia always filled La Peetch with friends and guests," Bob says, "so I’m sure it would delight her that the house was continuing her gracious tradition.  The fact that it will live on as a cooking school and retreat would be the icing on her, well, Reine de Saba.”  

Want to know more? Check out the stories on La Peetch in Vogue,  Conde Nast Traveler and People, then go to Lapeetch.com, where you can sign up for email updates.

Photos: (1) Julia's famously colorful Provence kitchen has been kept (almost completely) intact. Rent the house and have it all to yourself...or come take a weeklong "courageous cooking" workshop next year. (2) In the kitchen at La Pitchoune, Paul Child painted outlines of Julia’s tools and equipment on the pegboard walls. [Photo by Benoit Peverelli, courtesy of Luke Barr.]  (3) Julia Child on the terrace at La Pitchoune in the early 1970s, courtesy Luke Barr. (4-8) Interior and exterior shots of the house. Makenna says "Our goal is to maintain the house as much as possible, we have no intentions to remodel or update the house itself.  But we definitely are updating some elements of decor, including furniture and linens." (9) Julia's old La Cornue range now lives with Patricia Wells at her home and cooking school in Vaison-la-Romaine, Provence. Owning it, Patricia says, is like "having Freud's couch." (10) Julia at La Pitchoune in 1969. [Photo by Marc Riboud/Magnum Photos, from the Wall Street Journal.]

Another Fine French Book Giveaway

I met writer Luke Barr a few years ago in New York, at a panel discussion at NYU.  Luke was discussing  his ongoing research for a book partially about his great aunt--the legendary author M.F.K. Fisher-- and a very specific chapter of her life in the South of France.  Listening to Luke’s anecdotes,  I knew the finished book would be a terrific read. It finally came out (in late October, in hardcover) and has gotten  wonderful reviews.

Luke and his publisher, Clarkson Potter, are graciously offering three copies as a giveaway to the readers of Provence Post.

In the course of her long career (she died in Glen Ellen, California in 1992 at age 83),  M.F. K. Fisher wrote 27 books, starting with Serve it Forth in 1937.  Her style was a unique combination of food literature, travel and memoir, and W. H. Auden once remarked: "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose.”

The American-born Fisher was a frequent traveler to France, returning again and again, for months and even years at a time. She lived in Dijon in the late 1920s and early ’30s, then returned to France--this time to Aix en Provence-- in 1954.  Between 1955 and 1971, she bounced back and forth between France and St. Helena, California (and lived for a time in Lugano as well). Contemplating her future in a letter to a friend, Fisher once wrote: “I know, at this far date in my life, that I was meant to live and if possible to die on a dry, olive-covered hillside in Provence.”

In the fall of 1970, M.F. (as everyone called her) and her sister Norah (Luke’s grandmother) rented an apartment not far from Plascassier,  near Grasse, where Julia Child and her husband, Paul, had built a vacation home five years earlier. Julia had come to Provence to escape her American fame… to cook for friends…to shop the markets…to relax. The Child’s house sat on the estate of Simone “Simca” Beck, Julia’s great friend and co-author of the two volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The Childs named their vacation home La Pitchoune. 

“For a few weeks in 1970, the kitchen in the Childs’ house in Provence was the epicenter of the American food world,” Barr explains, in an April, 2013 Travel + Leisure article entitled Return to Provence.  “James Beard and M.F. came to dinner, or stopped by on their way back from a day at the Fondation Maeght museum; Richard Olney, the reclusive American author of the just-released French Menu Cookbook, who lived a few hours away outside Toulon, came to pay his respects. Judith Jones, the editor at Knopf who’d discovered Child and Beck, visited with her husband, Evan, staying at a nearby inn.  

“The trip that fall of 1970 was a fateful one, not only for my great-aunt, but for the entire American food establishment,” Barr continues. “They were all there in Provence together that fall and winter, more or less coincidentally… the people behind the seminal cookbooks and food writing of the era. They ate and drank and cooked together (and talked and sniped and gossiped, too), and they were all, in one way or another, rethinking their attachments to France, where they had each fallen in love with food and cooking to begin with.”

To write Provence 1970, a project that took him three years on and off, Barr (who was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Switzerland and now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters), took two leaves of absence from his job as an editor at Travel + Leisure. He combed archival research, interviews and the letters and journals of his great-aunt to re-create this pivotal moment.  He also used  the journals and letters of Fisher, Child, Olney, Beard and Beck…and the pages of Paul and Julia Childs’s “Black Book” (an “astonishing” binder of details about their home in France).

Luke also made multiple trips to Provence. “A few were trips in summertime,” Luke tells me,  “and one wonderful trip in November, when the weather was cool and beautiful, and there were no tourists or traffic. I had tracked down Raymond Gatti, who was the chauffeur everyone hired to drive them anywhere in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and who still lived in Plascassier. We spent days driving around together, visiting places that come up in my story, like the Fondation Maeght and the diet clinic where James Beard was enrolled in 1970, which had been torn down and was now the Grasse police headquarters. Raymond also showed all his old photos....’’

Luke also rented Julia Child’s home La Pitchoune  and you can read about that experience here.

And while the book itself has no photos, Luke has some wonderful images on his website here.

Among the flurry of positive reviews Library Journal calls Provence 1970 “…delightfully engaging, highly narrative, and intimate,’’ saying Barr does an excellent job of tying together the various threads of their collective stories through a blend of travelog, cultural history, and biography. “His account is quick and episodic in its pacing and feels vivid, authentic, and authoritative…” the review continues. “This small gem of a book is a fascinating delight.’’

And here’s what chef Alice Waters--owner of the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley--has to say: “Luke Barr has inherited the clear and inimitable voice of his great-aunt M.F.K. Fisher, and deftly portrays a crucial turning point in the history of food in America with humor, intimacy and deep perception. This book is beautifully written and totally fascinating to me, because these were my mentors—they inspired a generation of cooks in this country.”

My old friend Clark Wolf, a culinary historian and food consultant who splits his time between New York and Sonoma, knew all the characters in Provence 1970. So I rang him up to find out  what he thought about the book. “I love it but I may be prejudiced,” Clark told me. “For a lot of us it’s the pre-quel to our lives.  Like M.F.K., there is a real sound and feel to this writing that stays with you long after the story ends.  With food and wine we call it a long, fine finish.  With writing, we call it brilliant.”

To enter to win a copy of Provence 1970,  simply leave a comment under “comments” below. Be sure to leave an email address so we can reach you; signing in with your Google account is not enough. Tell us why you simply must have this book...or what the food and cooking of Provence means to you…or tell us about a fabulous French meal you’ll always remember…or which of M.F.K. Fisher’s books have been most-memorable for you. The more personal and evocative your comment, the better!

If you’d like to buy the book (288-pages, hardcover), you can find it on Amazon here or in the Kindle edition here.

Bonne Chance and Bon Appetit!

*Note: If you live in the New York area and are interested in food and food history, get yourself on the mailing list for Clark Wolf’s terrific discussion series at NYU. Called “Critical Topics in Food,” it’s held at the NYU Bobst Library on Union Square. Events (three or four each year) are open to the public and video archived. To get on the mailing list: assistant@clarkwolfcompany.com.

Photos: There are no photos in the book but Luke has these beauties and a few more on his website (lukebarr.net). 1. Julia Child on the terrace at La Pitchoune, her vacation house in Provence, in the early 1970s. 2. In the kitchen at La Pitchoune, Paul Child painted outlines of Julia’s tools and equipment on the pegboard walls. [Photo by Benoit Peverelli]. 3. Bert Greene, James Beard and Julia Child cooking together at M.F.K. Fisher’s Last House, in Sonoma County, in the late 1970s. Child, Beard, and Fisher remained lifelong friends, seminal figures in modern American cooking.

Passion! Ambition! Butter!

Tomorrow can't come fast enough for foodies here in the States, because that's when Julie & Julia comes out. The new movie has gotten huge press but if you haven't heard about the it, here's the gist. A young woman named Julie Powell, working in a depressing job in lower Manhattan and dreaming of becoming a writer, decides she's going to cook every dish--that's 524 recipes--in Julia Child's landmark book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking...and do it in one year....and blog about it. She called her blog "The Julie/Julia Project" and it was terrific. I followed it--and so did scores of other people.

So there was poor Julie Powell, working all day at that job she hates, then shlepping store to store trying to find all the ingredients, many of them esoteric, that she'd need for that evening's recipe, be it pigs' feet or bone marrow or beef bourguignon or whatever. Then dragging it all home to her apartment in Queens, complete with miniscule kitchen and patient young husband, and spending the whole evening turning out yet another classic French masterpiece (or flop). And then, before falling into bed, writing about it....articulately, amusingly, insightfully. What an amazing, insane, wonderful, terrible thing to do, I remember thinking.

The blog developed a huge following and Julie got a book deal. And now it's been turned into a movie, with a screenplay by Nora Ephron, who also directed. Meryl Streep plays Julia Child and everyone says she's brilliant. Stanley Tucci plays Paul Child the adored husband, the man responsible for giving Julia her very first taste of France. (He was in the foreign service and they accepted a posting to Paris.)

In France, Child "found herself" in the kitchen. She studied cooking at the Cordon Bleu and in Provence, then returned to the US and introduced Americans to French food though her books and TV shows, the first of which, The French Chef, you've probably seen parodied once or twice. Child broke barriers left and right, charmed everyone she met, paved the way for celebrity chefs and did scores of great things for the food world. (Her kitchen is now in the Smithsonian.)

The movie also follows the lives of Julia and Paul Child during their years in France (1948-1954), through Child's memoir, My Life in France (a wonderful book). Ephron, the critics say, has woven the two memoirs together beautifully...two strong and talented women finding professional purpose through food.

Julie & Julia opens Friday in the U.S. and I'll be there for sure, with a gaggle of my foodie gal pals beside me. It opens in the U.K. Sept. 11th and in France Sept. 16th. Reviews and features are all over the internet so I won't bother to give you a link. But I will do as Julia always did and wish you a hearty "Bon Appetit!"