Introduction

To answer your first question: yes. This blog is a complete rip off of the “Julie/Julia Project” blog. To answer your second question (if you know me in person): no, I don’t hate cooking. I just don’t really know what I’m doing. 

Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve only seen the Amy Adams/Meryl Streep movie adaptation of “The Julie/Julia Project”, so some of my conjectures below could be complete bull. But based on what I’ve seen, I think the connection between Julie Powell’s blog and my own goes beyond just the name and basic premise. Though Julie was an experienced cook and I have just barely broken in my wooden spoons, I am learning to enjoy cooking. I consider myself an artsy-craftsy person, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone that making something with my own hands would excite me, including food.

            Julie Powell was at a place in her life where she was sort of trapped and a bit lost: about to turn 30, an aspiring writer, but stuck working a temp job in order to make money, and watching everyone around her take steps forward in their lives. Her blog was a way to ground herself and find comfort.

I am currently a college senior studying psychology and education. I am not actually graduating this upcoming May because I’m in a five-year Masters degree program. Instead I will make the switch from undergrad to graduate student, and then again to full time student teacher.  Despite being on the cusp of so many changes, I think this project could serve the same purpose for me as it did for Julie. Change is overwhelming and even though I know I’ll be in the same city next year, I still often feel lost about my life. Making a commitment like this, and eventually completing a project this big will definitely make me feel grounded and give me a break from my otherwise crazy complicated life.

So let’s get the details straight. I am giving myself 365 days to cook my way through the 241 recipes in Mollie Katzen’s The New Moosewood Cookbook. According to its back cover, it “was listed by the New York Times as one of the top ten best-selling cookbooks of all time”. It has only vegetarian recipes—no big deal for me as I made the switch to vegetarianism about 16 months ago—and even includes some photos and illustrations of the food.

I picked this book because my mom owns the original one and recommended it to me when I moved into my current apartment. She cooks from her copy quite a lot and one of my favorite dishes of hers is adapted from a Moosewood recipe. I’ve only barely glanced through my new copy purchased through the wonder of Amazon Prime, but it seems straightforward enough. I don’t anticipate too much trouble figuring out how to actually follow any of the recipes.

But why a cooking project? It’s not like “Julie & Julia” is my all time favorite movie or I’ve just suddenly been inspired by it. It came out like four years ago and I don’t even really like it that much. But I picked food because my cooking experience is pretty minimal. I'm working from a blank slate. I almost never cooked for myself growing up because my family lives on the campus of a boarding school and we would eat at the school’s dining hall. My mom is great cook, but really only cooks sparingly—read: whenever the dining hall was closed.

I don’t ever really remember being interested in learning how to cook as a younger kid, and as a high schooler I was adamantly against it. My mom did manage to teach me some basics though. I can make grilled cheese and pasta. I can make about anything from a box or can. I can make some really excellent chocolate chip cookies, though when my sister uses the same recipe they always taste about a thousand times better and I don’t understand why. And my dad even taught me how to make both scrambled and poached eggs in the microwave. Actually, until I watched “Julie & Julia”, I didn’t even know there was another way to make poached eggs because I’d only ever used our little microwave thingy.

            When I came to college, I moved into a dorm that was equidistant from two campus dining halls and in between a coffee shop and 2 snack bars, both open until 2am. Needless to say, I fully embraced my required meal plan. For the next two years, I continued to live in a dorm sans kitchen and also had (smaller) meal plans. This gave me the opportunity to perfect the art of dorm room cooking, using only a mini-fridge, microwave, and electric kettle. I can make a mean microwaved baked potato, but in all honesty, I pretty much survived on PB+J, pasta and pesto, hummus, and eating out at restaurants. But I would like to say, with pride, that I have never made Ramen Noodles!

This summer, I moved into my first apartment, with my very first kitchen. Really it’s more like something you’d find in a mid-level hotel suite, but it’s my kitchen and I love it all the same. I have a half size oven/stove combo, but I can still use my normal size pans if I turn them long-ways. I have a full size fridge and freezer, which is good because my dad instantly nabbed the mini-fridge as the new beer cooler at home. A combination of hand-me-downs, gifts, and Target shopping trips outfitted the kitchen with the tools needed for pretty much any culinary project you could think of.

The word "adorable" comes to mind 

So far, using only the Internet and hope as my guides, I wouldn’t say I’ve really had any cooking “disasters”, but I haven’t really been too adventurous. I cook 2-3 dinners a week for myself (beans and quinoa are my staple!) and eat leftovers or simple things like sandwiches or pasta for lunch. I try to limit how much I eat out, because money, but I know I still spend more than I should. 

            So, at the risk of becoming another one of those 20-somethings with a blog (barf), I will, for the next 365 days and 241 recipes, embark on a journey to both expand my horizons and develop some roots. As a cooking noob, I hope this blog will help me learn—and learn to appreciate—this valuable (and delicious) life skill. I’m nervous, and frankly, I don’t really know if I can do it. But I’m gonna give it a try! What have I got to lose, really?