Dhe food blogger and author Julie Powell, immortalized in the Hollywood comedy “Julie & Julia”, is dead. Powell died at the age of 49 as a result of a heart attack, as the “New York Times” reported on Tuesday, citing her husband. She died on October 26 at her home in upstate New York.
At the turn of the millennium, Powell, bored with her administrative job, set about recreating all 524 recipes in the classic cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1” by cook Julia Child from 1961 within a year. She documented the mishaps in the small kitchen of her New York apartment in a blog with humorous and self-deprecating texts – making her one of the first food bloggers and a role model for many other women.
The project became the book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes and 1 Tiny Kitchen, published in 2005. Director Nora Ephron turned it into Julie & Julia (2009), starring Meryl Streep as Child and Amy Adams as Powell.
Noted food blogger Deb Perelman said Tuesday she was “shocked” by Powell’s death. “She made Child relevant to a new generation and wrote about cooking in a fresh, fun, this is-my-real-life tone, which was rare at the time,” Perelman wrote on Twitter.