Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a two-volume French cookbook written by Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, both of France, and Julia Child of the United States. The book was written for the American market and published by Knopf in 1961 (Volume 1) and 1970 (Volume 2). The success of Volume 1 resulted in Julia Child being given her own television show, "The French Chef", one of the first cooking programs on American television. Historian David Strauss argues that the publication of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", "did more than any other event in the last half century to reshape the gourmet dining scene."
Meryl Streep
In 2009, Streep played chef Julia Child in Nora Ephron's "Julie & Julia", co-starring with Stanley Tucci, and again with Amy Adams. (Tucci and Streep had worked together earlier in "Devil Wears Prada".) The first major motion picture based on a blog, "Julie and Julia" contrasts the life of Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell (Adams), who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Longworth believes her caricature of Julia Child was "quite possibly the biggest performance of her career, while also drawing on her own experience to bring lived-in truth to the story of a late bloomer". In Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy "It's Complicated" (also 2009), Streep starred with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. She received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for both "Julie & Julia" and "It's Complicated"; she won the award for "Julie & Julia", and later received her 16th Oscar nomination for it. She also lent her voice to Mrs. Felicity Fox in the stop-motion film "Fantastic Mr. Fox".