Julie & Julia, or (more appropriately) Julia & some-random-girl-named Julie

Sunday, I finally convinced the hubby to for the successful new film Julie & Julia.

First Impression: Good (Great? I'm so bad with praise) movie.Why? I absolutely loved Meryl Streep here, her uncanny voice, and addictive awkwardness which (I'm going to have to gather because, frankly, I've never heard the voice of Julia Child, to my memory) must surely be a dead-on impression of the magical woman. In all honesty, Julia, if this IS accurate, reminds me of said hubby, who was being very quirky and fabulously awkward the entire weekend. So it could matter who is sitting next to you (slouched in his seat, fiddling with a pair of Ray-Bans like a baton twirler from Britain's Got Talent. Ok, so maybe not quite like that...I digress.

Verdict: See it. Theater-viewing optional. It's a perfect Saturday afternoon flick to get you motivated to cook something delicious for dinner. Actually, you probably DON'T want to see this movie UNLESS you have time to cook afterward. It's that appetizing (can I even say no pun intended here, is this a pun? Help me Englishy people out there...)

Reservations: My only issue with the film is based off my background. I'm a writer, so books-come-movies always are a difficult genre to, um, swallow. This spring I had, coincidentally, bought off a rack of "$4.99 Bargain Books" the first 2005 edition Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen (which I have to say has the most hideously bland yuppie cover for such a multi-faceted narrative...bad editor, bad, BAD!). I later discovered a book was being made about the film, and vowed to read the book before the movie, in case anything was going to get "spoiled" by the film (how many freakin' food metaphors can I accidentally use here...another post surely). And oh how the film spoiled so so much.

Poor Julie looks like every aspiring writer, aspiring cook, aspiring wife, sometimes even aspiring ADULT. One friend, C., who didn't read the book ask, "What was the whole point of the story, though?" Exactly.

First Words Out of the Theater: "I'd be pissed if this was the movie that they made out of my book. She comes across like such a whiny bitch." Such a departure from the at-times-tear-inducing Julie Powell of the book.

Ultimately my beef is with the marketing of this film. You think, oh, it's a movie version of the book. FALSE. It's a combination of TWO BOOKS, Julie Powell's memoir, and Child's autobiography, My Life in France. So of course Julia steals the show. You can't put a budding NY writer up against the tour de force that was Julia Child. And especially never can you cast Meryl Streep without full knowledge that her character will not be overshadowed by, no offense, a newcomer.

And frighteningly I just made the connection that this isn't even the first time Amy Adams and Meryl Streep have shared a screen (2008's Doubt, also starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, also recommended). That's how much this movie has dazed me!

There's an A.V. Club review that point out the same problem, but I'll take it a step further. Maybe I didn't see the narcissism, since Julie Powell comments on her awareness of blog-as-self-idolatry. It just seems so damnable to criticize someone who already beat you to the punch with self-criticism.

Wishful Revisions: What do I wish the movie really portrayed? Powell's memoir is more than just a cutesy romantic-comedy blog. I was really struck by the metaphor of what's missing. Julie doesn't have the sense of direction all her friends seem to have. The memoir is her finding of inspiration. But Julie works for an organization that deals with the fallout from 9-11, and the conference room looks out over "Ground Zero."

In my eyes, it's a subtle post-9-11 narrative told through the eyes of a woman who may or may not realize that she's being so universal. I wanted to see THAT type of collective literary catharsis, the connection on the screen of food and soul and loss and being lost. I wanted JULIE to shadow Julia, the real triumphing over the mythic. Ephron's film to me is a Bifteck Sauté Bercy that's missing the marrow and the rich, meaty, intensity of a "life, well lived" (Powell's description) that deeply richens the original memoir.

I thought I'd share part of an old poem of mine that seems a fitting close...

I remember after the funeral, playing hide and seek

with my brother, and crawling under the bed finding, alone,

my grandfather’s reading glasses. Surely, they could have only

fallen from his face as he collapsed, here, beside the bed. It was

too much of the past to stomach, like a funeral banquet grander

than any wedding feast because the caterer knows we must

always fill ourselves against a loss: the meal itself, a new story,

the first bite an opening line repeated like a chorus for hours.

from "Doggerel"
© 2009 Lindsey Gosma Donhauser

Recipe Revision - (Green Chile) Meatloaf

Quick summary of my cooking strategy:
1) Learn/build on basic techniques.
2) Try new recipes, constantly.
3) Improve, in equal measure, skills and recipes.

I feel like I've made enough dishes to know what I like, and I pride myself on the ability to tweak a recipe before I've started cooking. While this might be considered blasphemy by some recipe-purists, I make it a benchmark of my personal cooking style.

One small consequence of knowing a recipe's "faults" (at least for my own palate) is that I often make a recipe one time, and one time only. I get bored with the flavor by the end of my plate, and the leftovers just drive home how this particular dish isn't going to decidedly change the course of my cooking repertoire the first, or the second, time around.

But sometimes I make a gem. And it falls into the routine of my meal planning, a comfort food that I dream of afternoons before hitting the grocery. So I make it again (GASP!). But true to my nature, I tweak. I play. I "proof" in the more literary sense of the word.

Last night's revision: Meatloaf.

Now I also have to disclaimer this entry, because I have a slight culinary handicap. I don't eat red meat. Yep. No beef, no pork. As I have to simply describe it, "I don't eat anything that started out on 4 legs." It has been this way since 2000, and shall remain into the foreseeable future. Now I'll taste almost anything I can stomach, but I don't as a rule, cook or ingest meals based on aforementioned 4-legged protein repositories.

So Meatloaf is "meat" in the animal sense, but not the beef-based sense. I use ground turkey, generally, but the other caveat is that I've never actually tried the real "meat" meatloaf. My mother despised it. She never cooked it. I only discovered it after working at a restaurant that built it's reputation on a particularly indulgent version. "I can do that!" I said. So I did, but I based my first impression off of the Better Homes & Gardens' New Cookbook (14th ed.). This single volume is the holy-grail of my cookbook collection. I believe that because of it's low-brow status, it provides what is the most standard, American "home-cooking" version of many classic dishes. I had an earlier version in college, which gave me many evenings of good eats. I upgraded to a fancy-shmancy three ringed version, an act I equated with my childhood, baking cookies during the holidays based on recipes in my mother's own greasy-fingerprint-smudged edition. God only knows how old it was. (I still use it when I go home in December, and it's getting awfully yellow and maybe even a bit crinkly. It's amazing.)

So...finally now to the revision part. Ha.

I've made the same basic recipe about half a dozen times, mainly just adding garlic and other seasonings. Last night, a true revision. My husband and I love green chiles, as any good Southwesterner. I've been dying to makeover a meatloaf into its spicier self. Like a gratutious teen movie where the dorky math girl gets va-vavoom hair and a sexy red tube dress. Here goes:

Original Ingredients:

2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup milk
2/3 cup fine, dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 tbs snipped fresh parsley
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried herbs (basil, sage, oregano), crushed
1/8 tsp pepper
1 1/1 lbs lean ground beef, lamb, or pork
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tbs packed brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard

Mix the first 8 ingredients, add meat to mix, pat mixture into loaf pan, and bake at 350 for 1 hour 15 minutes. Spoon off fat. Mix last 3 ingredients. Top loaf with mixture and bake 10 minutes more to 160 degrees. Let stand for 10 minutes to cool and firm up.

Recipe Revision:

1/4 cup finely chopped onion
5 cloves garlic, minced
16 oz. container of frozen "extra hot" green chiles, thawed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup milk
2/3 cup fine, dry breadcrumbs
2 tbs snipped fresh cilantro
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1 tbs ground cumin
1/8 tsp pepper
1 1/1 lbs lean ground turkey
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tbs honey
2 tbs red chili powder
1 tbs green chili powder
generous dash of Tapatio

Saute first 3 ingredients over low heat until softened. Set off heat to cool. In a bowl, mix the next 8 ingredients, add cooled chile mix and ground turkey, pat mixture into loaf pan (I HIGHLY recommend Williams-Sonoma's special meatloaf pan as it does WONDERS removing fat, keeping it off the top of your loaf), and bake at 350 for 1 hour 15 minutes. Spoon off fat. Mix last 5 ingredients. Top loaf with mixture and bake 10 minutes more to 165 degrees** (higher temp. for ground poultry). Let stand for 10 minutes to cool and firm up. I served this with steamed french green beans and cilantro mashed potatoes (made with lots of butter, sour cream for the dairy, a turn of olive oil, and a boiling and mashing a parsnip with the potatoes for a bit of extra earthy spice). Good pairing, I'd have to say. I was full and the hubby was in a food coma by 8 pm.

Revisions to the Revision (or What I'd Change Next Time):

1.) The loaf was a bit too moist, even after the firming time. I'd probably substitute 1/4 cup heavy cream for the 3/4 cup milk as a way to get flavor and eliminate half a cup of extra moisture. I also believe that ground turkey has a higher water content anyway, so this fix serves two purposes.

2.) I don't' know about you, but I love, I mean love the sweet-spicy combo with hearty foods. I'd probably make even more of the ketchup mixture. I debated using a salsa last night, so I might actually try a half-ketchup, half-red chile salsa mix. Extra spicy, extra saucy. (Sounds like a sequel!)