Food writer Julie Powell, who grew to become an web darling after running a blog for a yr about making each recipe in Julia Child’s (*49*)Mastering the Art of French Cooking, resulting in a book deal and a movie adaptation, has died. She was 49.
Powell died of cardiac arrest on Oct. 26 at her residence in upstate New York, the New York Times reported. Her loss of life was confirmed by Judy Clain, Powell’s editor, who can be editor-in-chief of Little, Brown.
“She was a superb writer and a daring, authentic individual and she or he won’t be forgotten,” Clain mentioned in a press release. “We are sending our deepest condolences to all who knew and cherished Julie, whether or not personally or by way of the deep connections she cast with readers of her memoirs.”
Powell’s 2005 book, (*49*)Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, grew to become the hit movie (*49*)Julie & Julia, directed by Nora Ephron, with the creator portrayed in the movie by Amy Adams, whereas Meryl Streep performed Child.
Her sophomore and final effort — titled (*49*)Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession — was a bit jarring in its honesty. Powell revealed she had an affair, the ache of loving two males at as soon as, her fondness for sadomasochism and even wrote about self-punishing intercourse with a stranger.
“People coming from the movie (*49*)Julie & Julia and selecting up (*49*)Cleaving are going to be in for some emotional whiplash,” she instructed The Associated Press in 2009. “I do not imagine it is going to be a Nora Ephron movie.”
Powell started her affair in 2004, as she was placing the ending touches on her first book — a time, she writes, when she was “starry-eyed and vaguely discontented and had an excessive amount of time on my fingers.”
By 2006, she had landed an apprenticeship at a butcher store two hours north of New York City, which supplied an escape from her crumbling marriage and a spot to discover her childhood curiosity with butchers.
“The method they held a knife of their hand was like an extension of themselves,” Powell mentioned. “I’m a really clumsy individual. I do not play sports activities. That sort of bodily talent is de facto international to me, and I’m actually envious of that.”
The book explores the hyperlink between butchering and her personal tortured romantic life. At one level, whereas slicing the connective tissue on a pig’s leg, she writes: “It’s unhappy, however a aid as properly, to know that two issues so carefully sure collectively can separate with so little violence, leaving clean surfaces as a substitute of bloody shreds.”
Her book tapped into the rising curiosity in old-school butchery, and her expertise slicing meat truly resulted in her consuming much less of it. She was an advocate for humanely raised and slaughtered animals.
“People need to get their fingers soiled. People need to take part in the course of. People need to know the place their meals is coming from,” Powell mentioned. “People don’t desire the thriller anymore.”
She is survived by her husband, Eric.