Food Coma on a Screen

How does someone watch a sizzling plate of crispy roasted chicken or the decadent oozing of chocolate streaming into a pie crust without feeling sympathy hunger pains, without having it tingle on the taste buds in phantom enjoyment?  In Julie and Julia, Nora Ephron explores the start of enjoying food on a sensory level that excludes taste.  Julia Child is a pioneer of food television and might be partially to blame for the creation of an entire network devoted to showing us things we can’t eat but WANT TO SO BADLY!  Julie Child started a craze, she changed how we think about food in this world and decades later Julie Powell honored that memory by blogging her way through Child’s cookbook.  This movie made me feel just as a delicious meal does: warm, cuddly, with a hint of a smile and the knowledge that it would be a very bad idea to have another bite.  Julie and Julia hit the right note, idealizing a legend while showing that sometimes that idol is just in our head; it was sweet and loving but moved from those romantic scenes quickly enough that we did not get bogged down in their cuteness or feel like the focus of the movie was romance instead of these pioneering women.  In the end, I wanted to be at both tables, Julia’s perfected originals with paper hearts and Julie’s modern day hit or misses.  Because both tables had friends, laughter, and most importantly, FOOD!