Julie Powell, best known as the blogger who spent a year cooking her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, released a new memoir on December 1.

It’s called Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession and it details Powell’s apprenticeship with a New York butcher. During this time she was also going through a rough patch in her marriage.

USA Today has an interview with Powell where she discusses the new book. The article says:

Shortly after she finished writing Julie & Julia, in which she speaks adoringly of her “sainted” husband, Eric, Powell and her husband both had affairs that nearly destroyed their marriage.

In Cleaving (the film rights have not been sold), she writes in graphic detail about her two-year affair with a man she refers to as “D.” She describes their sexual encounters and even having sex with a stranger as she struggled with shame and self-loathing.

Over the summer, I attended a book signing for Julie & Julia and Powell took questions from the audience. The very first question was “Please tell me you’re still married to Eric.” Powell responded, “I am still married to Eric. Yeah, absolutely.[pause] is that it?” The audience was giggling and her tone was friendly, but there was still some awkwardness in that moment. Now I can understand why she probably didn’t want to elaborate.

I enjoyed Julie & Julia and I’m curious about Julie and Eric’s relationship troubles, but reading about her sex life seems a little too voyeuristic for me. Is anyone planning on reading Cleaving? Leave your comments below!

With all the buzz surrounding the Julie & Julia movie, you probably already know the basic premise: Julie Powell, stuck in a dead-end job and approaching thirty, decides to spend a year cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Powell, who describes her secretarial job at a government agency as soul-sucking, thought cooking Julia Child’s recipes would be a great way to learn to cook and, at the same time, reclaim her life. She began blogging about her experiences in the kitchen and eventually landed a book deal (if you are curious about her blog it is still available here).

If this sounds like the undertaking of a pretentious New York foodie, think again. Julie Powell is not some Martha Stewart wannabe – she’s a foul-mouthed former Texan who lives in a decrepit Queens apartment and has a bit of an obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The book is full of horrifying descriptions of her apartment and lack of basic hygiene, from backed up pipes to maggots – be prepared to be completely grossed out. Her cooking experiences rarely go smoothly and the labor-intensive recipes mean that she and her husband hardly ever eat dinner before 10 pm. If you’ve seen the movie (or even the paperback cover which has Amy Adams wearing lace and pearls) you may have a slightly different image of Powell. As she says in this interview, the movie portrayed her as a “softer” version of herself and cleaned up her language.

Even more horrifying than her apartment are some of the dishes she has to prepare. Liver, kidneys, brains, marrowbones, these are just some of the ingredients called for in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Child’s chapter on aspics seems particularly unappetizing and contains such recipes as “Foies de Volailles en Aspic” which is basically “chicken livers cold with jelly on top of them.” The jelly, by the way, is made by boiling calves feet, the thought of which just makes me shudder. As you can probably imagine, preparing all this French food required lots and lots of butter. Powell estimates that she used 60 lbs. of butter that year (how do the French stay so thin?).

Despite the fact that this book occasionally made me nauseous, I really enjoyed reading about Powell’s life and experiences in the kitchen. I think she has a great sense of humor and her struggle to get her life on track is relatable. Julie and Julia reminded me of Bridget Jones’ Diary because it’s also about a twenty-something who doesn’t have it all together, and who somehow manages to be self-absorbed and endearing at the same time. If you are a serious Julia Child fan and are looking for recipes or detailed information on preparing her dishes, this probably isn’t the book for you. But if you are looking for a hilarious and snarky story about a young woman changing her life, give Julie and Julia a try.

Buy Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell on Amazon by clicking here.

With the release of the movie Julie & Julia only weeks away, author Julie Powell is busy promoting her best-selling book of the same name. She spoke to a crowd of about 50 fans who gathered at the Borders Books & Music in Birmingham, Michigan on Tuesday, July 21, and signed books afterwards. Julie & Julia is a memoir about the year Julie Powell cooked all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s famous book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Funny and open, she took questions from the audience about her book, the movie, and her personal life.

The day before the book signing, an article in Publisher’s Weekly kicked up some controversy because Judith Jones, Julia Child’s longtime editor, was quoted as saying Julia Child did not approve of Powell’s project. Jones claims Child said, “I don’t think she’s a serious cook.” When asked about Julia Child’s reaction to her blog, Powell said:

“Of course my first reaction was to be sort of devastated… It was incomprehensible to me I could have dedicated this year of my life and that it would be, what I had done would be read as glib or unserious. Yeah, I absolutely had that first [reaction]… I want to explain myself, if she only understood this is such a tribute… I’m so grateful to her for this year.”

She went on to say that, after thinking about it for a while, she realized that Julia Child touched so many lives, and the result is that everyone has their own inner Julia Child. She prefaced this by admitting that it is somewhat corny, but continued on to say:

“…and the thing is that everybody’s Julia is different. And so sometimes the Julias conflict and then you get in fights with people because people are very protective, people want their Julia… I’ve just decided that my Julia is ok with it.”

If you want to read more, Slashfood has an interview with Judith Jones where she expands upon her original comments. On the flip side, Elissa Altman wrote a piece for the Huffington Post where she argues that Jones needs to realize that Powell’s book is about Julie, not Julia, and in no way tarnishes Child’s work.

Powell also discussed her motivation for starting the project, which she says, at the time, came out of a desire to learn to cook and not being able to afford culinary school. In retrospect, she says that it probably had more to do with being 29 and hating her job as a secretary. As she puts it, her job was “sucking the life out of me day by day” and coming home from work and cooking Julia Child’s recipes was better than coming home “sitting in front of the television, getting drunk, and falling asleep.” It was her husband who suggested she blog about her experiences, and about six months into the blog she received a call about writing a book. She also recounted a funny story about how, after she quit her job, one of her male bosses famously declared that Powell would never make anything of herself. Now her former co-workers are thrilled by her success and throw that in his face as much as possible.

Nora Ephron wrote the screenplay for the Julie & Julia movie and met with Powell to discuss the book, something that she found exciting and intimidating. She’s a fan of Ephron’s work but found her to be very intense in person. Powell described one of her favorite scenes in the movie, a big fight with her husband, only she never told Ephron about the fight. She said Ephron must have figured it out on her own, though it felt like she had somehow gotten into Powell’s brain. She mentioned several scenes from the movie and, overall, she seemed very pleased with it. The movie Julie & Julia comes out on August 7th and Powell’s latest book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, will be released in the fall.

Buy Julie & Julia by Julie Powell on Amazon by clicking here.