Food For Thought: Julie & Julia

This past weekend, Stef and I went with our friend Amy to watch Julie and Julia in the theater, which is something I’ve wanted to do since first hearing about the movie earlier this year. I really don’t know the last time that a movie really struck a chord with my actual life: so many times we transport ourselves to actually “be” in the movie, but it’s different when the movie actually IS your life! So, in the grand scheme of cooking and blogging, I decided that writing about this movie and how it affected me was just as much in line with the blog as anything else.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my job and I love, absolutely love, the people that I work with. I can’t remember a time when I truly enjoyed the people that I work with as much as the people I work with now. I have an absolutely amazing family, we have fantastic friends, a church that we believe in and love serving at, we live in the mountains, we recently got another puppy (which makes 2 perfect pups that we have now), and we have a home that we love. We are truly, truly blessed, but I still can’t help feeling sometimes that there’s something missing. I feel as though I’m still not pursuing the thing I love to do, the gift that God has blessed me with, the passion that I love sharing with others. And, just like Julie in the movie, I know that even if everything goes wrong, at the end of the day cooking is what brings me back to simply loving life. Food, although there are millions upon millions of recipes, cooking methods, and styles, is really very simple. There’s no right or wrong, it just is what it is.

Another thing that I really identified with was Julia Child’s desire to learn more about the art of French cooking. I have wanted for so long to attend cooking school, but (thanks to the almighty dollar) I have not yet had the chance to go. I felt so encouraged by the fact that she didn’t go to cooking school when she was a teenager or even in her 20’s. I think that so many times we try to get all of our schooling and learning and experience when we’re young, as if that’s going to help us just skate through the rest of life carefree. If there’s anything I’ve figured out in the past (almost) 26 years, it’s that there will always be a curveball, and we’ll never be at a point where life is just easy. But the great thing about life is that complication only makes us stronger, which is something I really appreciated about the portrayal of Julia Child in Julie and Julia.

My dream is to one day be able to encourage and love people through the medium of cooking and food. It’s something I love, and I think that finding that thing is the start to a joyful life.

Bon appetit!