An Audience of Two

Last week my mother told me about a book review she had read about Julie and Julia, a culinary memoir by a woman who blogged about her year-long adventure to cook every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking: Volume One. I was momentarily speechless when I heard about this. Not only was this author ambitious in her cooking, but she came up with a singularly wonderful thesis with which to sell her book to a publisher. She had a great idea and is apparently a great talent. I wish it had been my idea.

Of course, being a vegetarian, I would already have been unable to undertake the same exact task. Regardless, there is obviously a market for vegetarian writing, and definately a market for easily accessible vegetarian recipes. After all, what I'm doing here isn't exactly tofu roasting. I eat no meat, yet I generally cook dishes that would be palatable to your average Joe. Granted, most vegetarians lean towards the aging hippie types or the eager young activitist breed. I am neither.

So sure, I could do something similar. But then it wouldn't be original, and therein lies the problem.

The Julie/Julia Project blog will at least be interesting reading now that I know about it, even though I'm a day late and a dollar short on the bandwagon here. And of course I will read her book, if for no other reason than to flog myself for not thinking of this first. Especially since a little research has turned up the nugget that this woman won the 2004 James Beard Foundation Award for food journalism.

Sigh. At least maybe this will prod me to learn some French recipes...