I loved watching The French Chef as a young housewife. Not that I ever aspired to be a French chef; didn’t buy her book or even attempt to follow one of her recipes.

I watched because the show was entertaining. Julia’s personality was engaging; she was forever cheerful even when her techniques flopped right on TV for all the viewers to witness. Looking back I think she taught more than cooking, she taught us young mothers and wives that mistakes happen and the world does not come to an end. That was a comforting lesson for me.

The movie, Julie and Julia, directed by Nora Ephron and based on the book by the same title, was a nice trip down Memory Lane for me the baby boomer, and not only because I was a fan of Julia Child, the French Chef (I never knew she wasn’t really French until seeing this movie) but it brought back memories of my own cooking catastrophes. The scene where Julie falls asleep and burns the beef bourguignon was reminisce of the time I cremated a chicken, literally reducing it to ashes. I didn’t fall asleep. I left home, forgetting all about the chicken stewing in a cast iron Dutch oven. When I came back to a house full of smoke, then I remembered.

Meryl Streep did a marvelous job of portraying the larger-than-life Julia Child without any distraction. I completely forgot the actress and focused on the real life woman. Amy Adams as Julie was charming. I also enjoyed how the two husbands – Stanley Tucci as Paul Child and Chris Messina as Eric Powell - supported their wives in their respective cooking quests and writing journeys.

This movie was as much fun to watch as Child’s popular PBS cooking show, with enough love-making and naughty words thrown in to titillate the audience, but not so much as to overshadow the stories of two women in love with their cooking and writing, and their husbands. I give Julie and Julia two thumbs up!

Read more about the movie here -  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135503/