From blog to crumbling apartment kitchen, a new cooking icon is born

Julie Powell proved you can be completely original by following in someone else's footsteps.

In August 2002, Powell was approaching 30 with fear and loathing: She'd learned she might never bear children; her dream of an acting career had deflated; and she was spending her days as a temp, commuting from Queens, N.Y., to a dead-end secretarial gig.

"A temp!" she rails even now, recalling how the limitations of the position pounded against her unexplored potential. She was not even a bona fide, if underappreciated, employee.

Ah, but this is a story with a happy ending. In this tale, our heroine escapes emotional defeat by throwing herself into an improbable cooking project that consumes and changes her life: She vows to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking."

Before her year of being 29 was over, Powell would have a new career as a food writer, with articles in Bon Appetit, House Beautiful, and Food & Wine. She'd take home two prestigious James Beard Foundation awards for her magazine stories and produce a critically acclaimed food memoir. She would become New York's latest "it-girl," the one others would quote in THEIR food stories.

It was a difficult path, strewn with bone marrow and blanched brains, but it restored her sanity.

And she owes it all to the late, great Julia Child.

Like Julie Powell, Julia Child was a young married woman in a transitional phase of her life (Child's diplomat husband had just been transferred to Paris) when she took up cooking.

Child's success is more than documented. She went on to become that rarity in France: a respected American chef. She co-authored the aforementioned "Mastering the Art" (now out in a 40th-anniversary edition from Knopf), became this country's first tele-chef, and was lovingly immortalized by Dan Aykroyd on "Saturday Night Live."

Julie would emulate, if not imitate, Julia.

On a trip home to Austin, Texas, she pocketed her mother's battered copy of "Mastering the Art" - and determined to master it before she turned 30. At the suggestion of her husband, Eric, an editor at Archaeology magazine, Powell also embarked on a blog about the project.

The blog drew thousands of hits and a faithful readership that encouraged her through the darker, aspic-filled moments of the project.

She wrote it with ease and intimacy - a style that prompted a story in the New York Times, about half-way through her year of cooking, which led to a book contract with Little, Brown.

The result is her irresistible memoir: "Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, — tiny apartment kitchen."

("Tiny" is kind. Crumbling is more like it.)

As in the blog, the book ruminates on Powell's life and times, detailing her ovarian difficulties, her angst about age, her efforts to fix her friends and their troubled sex lives, and her admiration of Julia.

It's just out in bookstores, and there's talk of a movie version: a kind of Bridget Jones Meets the French Chef.

"The idea that people would become followers of this project was totally unexpected," says Powell, a refreshing beauty with hair the color of tortoise shell.

The online audience kept her going, through failed crepes and quenelles, and on to Oie Braisee Aux Marrons (Braised goose with chestnut and sausage stuffing, p. 285). On the worst days, when she was knuckle-deep in Oeufs en Gelee, or poached eggs in aspic - made the old-fashioned way, by boiling hoofs into jelly - the apartment smelled like a tannery and Powell wondered at the wisdom of cooking ALL524 recipes.

"That was the most ill-conceived dish," she says.

And all the while, she slogged away at her day job.

In Child, Powell found the ideal model, an educated but unpretentious cook who derived great joy from making sumptuous food and savoring it with guests.

Still, she says, "I don't think I would have finished the project if I hadn't been blogging. And the meaning of the project - it's importance to me - only became clear through the eyes of the readers."

Mastering all those complicated French recipes restored her confidence and gave her comfort. It reconnected her to her smarts, her skills, her humor - all the characteristics that lay dormant during her life as a temp.

Through it all she laughed, she cried, she screamed at Eric (although the spoiled Sauce Tartare was not his fault).

So, now she knows what's what in the little bag that comes stuffed inside a store-bought chicken.

And she can truss a duck.

Her mother's domestic talents, Powell says, with a mix of admiration and awe, reflected her era. She dabbled in the occasional Boeuf A La Bourguignonne, but her green beans came from a can.

She was always making something: elaborate Halloween costumes, drapes, slipcovers or chocolate cakes.

No surprise then that Powell's antidote to the blahs was an all-consuming project.

"This is something I got from her," Powell says. "You throw yourself into a project and it keeps you from thinking; stops you from freaking out."

Cooking the book became Powell's refuge and her redemption.

"Mastering the Art" was not the only cookbook on Powell's or her mother's shelves, but it was the most mysterious. It turned green beans into Haricots Verts.

Here were crepes and clafoutis, bouchees and baguettes. Here was Foies de volaille en aspic (chicken livers in, essentially, savory Jello, p. 548), and here was Gateau a l?orange et Aux Amandes (orange and almond spongecake, p. 676). This was more than a linguistic challenge, this was cuisine at its hautest.

It required nothing less than splitting open a cow's leg bone to scrape out the marrow (to embellish the sauce for a delightful kidney dish) and running her fingers through calves brains (delicately, to pull off the filament).

Powell's previous cooking experience was limited. Once, while concocting a Cajun seafood gumbo, she stirred a roux with a plastic spoon, boiling a hole clear through it.

Now older, wiser and equipped with metal spoons, she agrees to make us one of her new favorite recipes from the book: Concombres Au Beurre, Baked Cucumbers.

"I was intrigued by it from the start," she says. "I remember thinking: How can this be good? It would never have occurred to me to cook cucumbers."

But here she is in her cramped kitchen, seeding and slicing. She digs deep in the cupboard for white wine vinegar, then goes to work on some scallions. Melt the butter, pat the cukes dry, assemble it all in a Pyrex pan, and into the oven it goes.

An hour later, the finished product still has enough crunch to make it a refreshing side dish and conversation starter.

Once the publicity buzz about her project got going, Powell heard through the grapevine that Julia Child had learned of what she was doing and was not amused.

"That devastated me. I didn't want her to see it as anything but a tribute."

So she wrote to Child and received in reply what appeared to be a gracious, but standard, response (it was typed).

But in the end, Julie and Julia never met. By the time the book was finished, Julia Child had died.

"Meeting her would have been inevitably disappointing, I think. I know her better by poring through her book."

"I have no claim over the woman at all," Powell wrote on her blog, "unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her out of the ocean."

BOEUF BOURGUIGNON (BEEF STEW IN RED WINE, WITH BACON, ONIONS AND MUSHROOMS)

Makes six servings

A 6-ounce chunk of bacon

— tablespoon olive oil

— pounds lean stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes

— carrot, sliced

— onion, sliced

— teaspoon salt

— teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons flour

— cups full-bodied red wine

2 to — cups brown beef stock

— tablespoon tomato paste

2 cloves garlic, mashed

— teaspoon thyme

— bay leaf, crumbled

18 to 24 small white onions, brown-braised (see note)

— pound mushrooms, quartered and sauteed in butter, about 5 minutes

1. Remove the rind and cut bacon into lardons (sticks ?-inch by 1?-inches). Simmer rind and bacon in 1? quarts water for 10 minutes. Drain. Dry. Heat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Saute the bacon in the oil in a 9- to 10-inch by 3-inch deep flameproof casserole over medium heat to brown lightly, 2 to — minutes. Remove to a side dish. Set the casserole aside.

3. Dry the beef in paper towels. It will not brown if damp. Reheat casserole until fat is almost smoking. Saute the beef, a little at a time, until browned on all sides. Add to bacon.

4. In the same fat, brown the vegetables. Discard the fat.

5. Return the beef and bacon to the casserole; toss with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with flour; toss lightly to coat the beef. Set casserole, uncovered, in the middle of the hot oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to the oven for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and forms a light crust.) Remove casserole. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees.

6. Stir in the wine and enough stock to just cover the meat. Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs and bacon rind. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover and set the casserole in the lower third of hot oven. Regulate the heat to simmer the liquid slowly for 2? to — hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.

7. Meanwhile, prepare the onions and mushrooms; set aside.

8. When the meat is tender, pour the casserole contents into a sieve over a saucepan. Wash the casserole. Return the beef and bacon to it. Spread onions and mushrooms over meat.

9. Skim fat from the sauce. Simmer the sauce for a minute or two, skimming off more fat as it rises. (Makes about 2? cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, add a tablespoon or two of stock. Adjust seasonings to taste. Pour over the meat and vegetables. Recipe may be prepared ahead to this point.)

10. To serve at once, cover and simmer for 2 to — minutes, basting meat and vegetables often. Serve in the casserole, or arrange on a platter surrounded by potatoes, noodles or rice.

11. To hold, let cool, cover and refrigerate. About 20 minutes before serving, bring to a simmer, cover, heat through.

- Condensed from Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"

Note: To brown-braise onions, saute in equal parts butter and oil for 10 minutes, turning to brown all sides. Add — cup brown stock and herb bouquet. Cover and simmer gently until the liquid evaporates, about 40 minutes.

Per serving: 778 calories, 62 grams protein, 16 grams carbohydrates, 5 grams sugar, 42 grams fat, 161 milligrams cholesterol, 1,317 milligrams sodium, 2 grams dietary fiber.

CONCOMBRES AU BEURRE (BAKED CUCUMBERS)

Makes 6 servings

6 cucumbers, about 8 inches long

2 tablespoons wine vinegar

1? teaspoons salt

Þ teaspoon sugar

— tablespoons melted butter

— teaspoon dill or basil

— to 4 tablespoons minced green onions

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1. Peel the cucumbers. Cut in half lengthwise; scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Cut in lengthwise strips about å-inch wide. Cut the strips into 2-inch pieces.

2. Toss the cucumbers in a bowl with the vinegar, salt and sugar. Let stand for at least 30 minutes or for several hours. Drain. Pat dry in a towel.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

4. Toss the cucumbers into a baking dish (12 inch by 1? inch deep) with the butter, herbs, onions and pepper. Set uncovered in the middle level of preheated oven for about — hour, tossing 2 or — times, until cucumbers are tender but still have a suggestion of crispness and texture. They will barely color during the cooking.

- From Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"

Per serving: 96 calories, 2 grams protein, 9 grams carbohydrates, 7 grams sugar, 6 grams fat, 16 milligrams cholesterol, 379 milligrams sodium, — grams dietary fiber.

Find out more about Julie Powell at .