March 18, 2010

Be sure to check out the end of this post for even more from Chef Todd!

I finally saw “Julia and Julie”, the movie. You know the one, right?

It's about how twenty-something home cook Julie Powell recreated 524 recipes in 365 days from Julia Child’s cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.

It’s a great movie, especially if you’re a fan of food, cooking, and Julia Child.

If only Hollywood could take over ALL cookbooks, because in Julia and Julie, every Julia Child recipe comes out perfectly on the first try for Julie Powell, a home cook with no culinary training!

She makes hollandaise perfectly the first time.

Her Spinach Souffle looks like a magazine photo on the first shot.

Hollywood makes everything easier.

I have great respect and admiration for Julia Child.  She brought high-level French cooking ideas to American households at the precise time that TV dinners and convenience foods were being mass-produced in the US.  Julia’s degree from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris enabled her to write these recipes because of her extensive culinary education combined with her passion for food and cooking.

In the movie, Julie Powell has no culinary education, but does have passion for food.

So I asked Chef Todd Mohr the following question:

“Is passion enough to be able to prepare every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook?”

His answer?

“Unfortunately, NO, it’s not.“

Not in real life at least.

Take the centerpiece of the movie, Julia's Beef Bourguignon recipes.

It’s not that Boeuf Bourguignon is a particularly difficult recipe to complete, but as with all recipes, especially Julia Child recipes, there are basic cooking methods behind the recipes that need to be understood.  Following lines of a recipe without knowing the visual cues is like driving your car blindfolded, but with a road map.

You may have all the directions, but you’ll miss all the visual information necessary to know how your trip is progressing, and to know when you’ve reached your destination.

So – I challenged Chef Todd to prove his point, and I asked him the following:

“How would you use basic cooking method to simplify Julia Child's famous recipe?”

Stay tuned to the next post to find out what he said!

Great news – not only has Chef Todd agreed to be on a podcast, but it's going to be a video podcast straight from his kitchen, so he can demonstrate all his tips and tricks, and answer your questions. So if you have a special technique you'd like to see (ok, maybe he's not going to make an entire Julia Childs recipe, but I'll be he sure can impress us), then simply leave your comments and questions below, and I'll ask Chef Todd during the video podcast!