Lights! Action! Food!

Foodies everywhere should be excited at this summer’s movie fare. Yesterday’s Wednesday’ food section of The New York Times had a huge artile about the new Julia Child movie, Julie & Julia. The piece, written by, Kim Severson, tells about the food that was used for that and other movies. Yes there are movies where food gets the top billing. However the movies’ stars, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams are pretty appetizing too!

Julia Child was the champion of French cooking here in the States. The movie shows this with the variety and amount of food. The stylist, Susan Spungen even baked twenty five cakes just for the scenes for Julia‘s birthday. Another required plunging lobsters; in boiling water for the scenes however no crustaceans were harmed in the making of these scenes. Instead there were a cold water mist to simulate steam and there were lobster wranglers from PETA present to make sure no one got hurt. Another scene called for Amy Adams to drop a fruit Bavarian, a rich type of cream cake . That required a special breakaway mold filled with whipped cream and raspberry puree so that it could spatter properly the way one would if you tossed it on your kitchen floor.

The film was written by the great Norah Ephron (remember she also wrote Heartburn and that also starred Ms. Streep twenty some odd years ago). Ms. Ephron is a notoriously good cook and it’s no wonder that she would give us a movie like that. It should be funny and sharp, with special and loving interest on that third leading character - the food. (OK fourth, the film also has Stanley Tucci as Mr. Childs).

Will I see Julie and Julia when it comes out. Being a foodie I should. Although it’s fun to watch it when it comes out on DVD with a wedge of Brie , good crackers and some Asti.