Julie Powell, a well-known food writer famous for recreating Julia Child’s recipes, has passed away at the age of 49. Her husband, Eric Powell, has confirmed that the author died on October 26 due to cardiac arrest.
Powell got wide recognition from her blog, the Julie/Julia Project, where she talked about the various hits and misses in her kitchen as she tried different recipes from the Child’s cookbook. Read on to know more about the blogger’s life and career.
Food Author Julie Powell Passes Away at 49
Powell died last Wednesday following a cardiac arrest at her home in Olivebridge, New York. Twenty years ago, in 2002, she had started her journey as a food blogger on Salon.com with the Julie/Julia Project. The blog was later turned into a book titled Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen in 2005.
In 2009, the book, along with Julia Child’s autobiography, My Life in France, was adapted into a movie, Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep as Child and Amy Adams as Powell. At the time, the author had talked about her book in an interview and said, “I worked very hard on that book.”
“I tested and retested those recipes for eight years so that everybody could cook them. And many, many people have. I don’t understand how she could have problems with them. She just must not be much of a cook,” she had added.
Julie Powell Published her Second Book in 2009
Powell’s second book, Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, followed her life as she worked at a butcher shop and how her job affected her marriage. During the release of her book in 2009, she had talked about how her way of writing differentiates her from others.
“Food bloggers, like all bloggers, are contentious, they say what they think and they hate on people,” Powell had said, adding, “And that’s good and valuable. But it’s a Wild West kind of world, and people feel free to say things they never would in a face-to-face civil conversation.”
Tributes Pour In for the Blogger
Ever since the news of her tragic demise broke, Powell’s friends and fellows from the industry started paying tributes to her. Chef Pim Techamuanvivit expressed his grief and wrote, “How very sad. She was so young.”
“I was a huge fan of her blog, and I am definitely old enough to remember when social media was more about being snarky about oneself than putting down others. RIP Julie,” she added.
Author Benjamin Dreyer tweeted, “How sad to read this. Julie was a longtime Twitter chitchatterer of mine, and I was always happy to see her pop up. Goodbye to her, far too soon.”
Deb Perelman of the blog Smitten Kitchen expressed her shock and wrote, “I was shocked to learn this morning of the passing of Julie Powell, the original food blogger. Cooking through Julia Child’s books, she made Child relevant to a new generation and wrote about cooking in a fresh, conversational, this-is-my-real life tone that was rare back then.”
Julie Powell is survived by her husband, parents, and a brother. Our deepest condolences to her family.
