Julie & Julia

Source: SonyPictures.com

On Saturday Julia and I checked out Julie & Julia from the Provo Library.  Julia's a big fan of Julia Child (the Julia in the title) and of good food.  She recommended the movie.

The movie has two parallel storylines.  The first is the life of chef Julia Child.  She and her husband live in Paris in the 50s, when Julia begins learning to cook.  She attends a French cooking class, teaches a cooking class, and, finally, she publishes a cookbook, which is apparently very well-known in the cooking world.

The second story is Julia Powell's.  She lives in New York with her husband in the early 2000s.  She is frustrated with her job and life in general.  Cooking is her release when she comes home from work.  So she decides to do a blog to give her life more purpose.  Her goal is to do all 524 recipes in Julia Child's famous cookbook in only 365 days.

The movie cuts back and forth between the two stories showing the parallels.  It's a good mix of drama, romance, and comedy.  I enjoyed watching it.  There's an f-word later in the movie, but there isn't too much objectionable material.  It inspired me to want to do something cool!  And to learn how to cook.

TED Talk: How to Succeed

When I'm doing work that permits it I like to listen to or watch interesting things: documentaries, TED Talks, General Conference talks, interesting podcasts (news, language, history, etc.), or online classes.  Today I watched a TED Talk that I really liked.

It's by a guy named Tai Lopez, and he talks about a lot of really great things.  He emphasizes the importance of mentors.  One thing I like is that he took initiative in finding his mentors.  He knew whom he wanted for a mentor, and he went and talked to him or her.  He didn't let fear stop him.  Also, he went out of his way to learn new things.  Instead of letting his lack of knowledge become an obstacle, he turned it into a strength and gained the knowledge through hard work.  And he talks a lot about how important reading is, and I'm always happy when people say good things about reading.  I really like how he hammers home the point that we need to work for the success we want.  A lot of people want the end result without the work, and that's not the way things work.  The video is just under twenty minutes long.  Watch and learn!