People Who Make me Feel Little #3

Julie Powell. Yes, the Julie Powell from Julie/Julia the movie with Meryl Streep. I know I will never become a good cook, or even just an average one - but I just watched the movie and it put all of this over-intoxicated, under-sexed nonsense into perspective. I hate it when people put me into perspective! I have wonderful daydreams about meeting new people who think I'm fabulous and we slowly grow up, read more widely and eventually write a magazine that brings postmodern philosophy into real-life. Then my dream cuts to seven years later and Shane Judith**, my child, is reading my article in her first year Arts class. Then I have to wake up and realise that the only thing anyone has ever read of mine is either this blog or my tutor reading an essay. Also that Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler and George Bataille (my latest theorist-crush) were most likely geniuses - perfectly educated ones. My marks might not even allow me into Sociology Honours at lousy ol' Melbourne University (a major that I'm not even marginally interested in).

The point is that this probably won't happen - I am not going to grow old with my friends and revolutionise the Academy - and Julie Powell makes that pertinently clear. You see, I read her blog and discovered that Martha Stewart is her god (as well as Julia Child by the end of her 365 days, obviously). She is educated and can cook, and whilst she is one of the more relatable People who make me feel little, she still projects this wonderful sense of femininity - the kind that grew out of home-made bongs and raiding her parent's medicine cabinets and actually did something she loved and made money from it! (and kept drinking and smoking and not exercising and eating fatty foods!).

So, instead of sticking to the four dishes I can cook - a Jamie Oliver roast chicken (I won't lie, sometimes I deviate from the orange and lemon stuffing and revert to some sort of bread-crumb, butter and garlic concoction), a Donna Hayes chocolate and raspberry pudding***, spaghetti bolognese and goats cheese and mushroom risotto - I'm going to actually attempt to learn proper-cooking. I'm not sure if this would bode well with the real-life Julia Powell, but for now I might stick with a Hollywood idealised version of her and then graduate to the real-life one once I've learned how crack an egg without getting egg-shell in my food.

Food-loving-peace,

Evilboy.

** Shane Judith is the fag-hag-love-child of Projectile Josh and I. She's named after Shane from the L Word and Judith Butler.

*** I used to make the chocolate raspberry pudding for cake days in high school and no one seems to have forgotten them. It got to a point where I would have to make like twenty-five little puddings (I made them in little china ramekins) so that everyone I made contact with that day could have a bite. I actually woke up two hours before school to bake them. Unfortunately, I think I might have lost my touch (and my budget) because last time I made them they weren't as good as I remembered.