sparkler's notes

Last night R and I went to see Julie Powell read at Vroman's. I was really excited to see her after reading her blog about cooking her way through the Mastering the Art of French Cooking (MtAoFC) in one year (yes she cooked every butter-filled recipe) and also reading her recently released book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. Book was good; it told the behind the blog story of the project and how doing the project really affected her life. I could go on how the book was not a repeat of the blog, funny, moving and inspiring all at the same time. For me the book was about identifying with an everyday woman who did embark upon something different and a little bit crazy to find her way in life.

It was her very first reading; she was cute and a little nervous. She sniffled a bit and one of her earrings came off during an animated reading passage. Her writing is funny and with her background in theater the humor really comes through as she reads. I loved the inflections in her voice as she read passages with dialogue of her and her mother.

She said she loved LA. Yeah, she said it. She even wrote it publicly in her new blog "What Could Happen" . Not sure when it got written into the city code that it was un-cool to utter those 3 little words, but you never hear a visitor after such a short time in LA decide they love it. Most of the natives/locals are too busy bemoaning about traffic to stop to say it. Hearing her say it was freeing to me. When moved I left San Francisco with resistance. I was under the ubiquitous influence of the northern Californian “LA sucks” mentality. In the last 2 years LA has crept into my heart like the smog slowly creeps west out to the ocean. LA is enchanting with it grandness, and its individuality of its small neighborhoods. You can’t find better weather. We have the ocean, the mountains, we have culture, and most important we have great food. I have friends here, a home here, I am happy here. I can make a bee-line for the beach on a sunny day or to the cool darkness of an air-conditioned movie theater in Hollywood. And sometimes I can just waste a day away knowing that tomorrow the sun with shine again. Thanks Julie for making me take a moment to appreciate where I live and realize I love here it.