Elizabeth Julia

Last night Taylor and I were lucky enough to snag two free tickets to a sneak preview of the new movie Julie Julia. It's about a young woman, Julie, who cooks her way through every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year. As she slices and dices Julie blogs because what she really wants to be is a writer. She happens to like cooking so it becomes her subject. While Julie is cooking herself and her husband into a frenzy a second story is running - the life of Julia Child and how she happened to learn to cook and to write her first cookbook.

I absolutely loved the movie. It was so uplifting, funny, and touching. It also reminded me of me, and all my fellow bloggers who write about knitting. What's the connection, you ask? The connection is Julia Child and Elizabeth Zimmerman. Julia is to French cooking, as Elizabeth is to knitting. Just like Julie prepared every one of Julia's dishes, I have thought about knitting every one of Elizabeth's patterns. I don't think the movie has inspired me enough to do this but I have had the thought, and I do write a blog about what I do knit. I just bet there are some knitters out their who have knit their way through the Knitters Almanac, and possibly blogged about it. I know there are bloggers who have developed large followings of readers, as Julie eventually did when writing about Julia. Perhaps I found this so charming because I recognized the process of Julie and Julia from a knitter's perspective.

So how, exactly are Julia and Elizabeth alike? They each have a passion. Both married really nice men, who supported their endeavors even though cooking and knitting weren't exactly the kind of activities women's libbers approved of in the years of the 60s and beyond. They both wrote books, shared their knowledge through teaching, and had TV shows long before programs about food, crafts, etc became commonplace. I think they both had amazing senses of humor as is evident in their writing and TV performances. The two of them made mistakes and realized their viewers/readers also would make mistakes. They made us comfortable with being human.They made it "okay" to enjoy some of the "womanly" crafts.

And how are all us bloggers like Julia? That's pretty obvious I think. We have a passion for our knitting and we vent our frustrations, and pat ourselves on the back through our writing. We get ideas for new projects, new techniques, designers and products from reading each others blogs. Julie was hoping to become a published writer. I think most of us aren't that ambitious, but blogging helps sort out our thoughts about something we love.

Whether you're a cook, a knitter, or a blogger I hope you'll see this movie. Even my husband, who loves to eat, only cooks occasionally, and tolerates my knitting, enjoyed the movie. As Julia and Elizabeth always said,

"Bon Appetit" and "Good Knitting"