"Julie Julia" news and stories

Multi-colored potatoes. Photo: me and the sysop, Flickr

• We know tomato crops are suffering, but could potatoes be next?
• A behind-the-scenes look at just how much went into making the food pop for "Julie & Julia". ... Plus a potluck at director Nora Ephron's.
  
• Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and a wad of pastrami?
• Some say tomato leaves are poisonous, but the Gray Lady reports there's no solid proof of this and that they're delicious.
• The Minimalist makes an easy pie crust.
• California vineyards are suffering as people stop sampling new wine.

Although the film adaption of "Julie & Julia" isn't coming out until August, Julia Child fans are already excited at the prospect of seeing America's most iconic cooking superstar served up onscreen. Following last weekend's sale of the film's props, your devoted Slashfood staff has been searching for images of the upcoming film.

Everything about Julia Child was outsized, from her flamboyant cooking style to her rich, fluttering falsetto, to her famously dry humor. This, after all, was the great chef who started her professional life as a purported spy in the OSS during World War II, became one of the few women to attend Paris' Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, and ended up spearheading a home-cooking movement that transformed American cuisine with her TV show "The French Chef."

Given Child's impressive height (she was 6-foot-2), it's perhaps unsurprising that the majority of her imitators have been men. The most famous was probably Dan Aykroyd on "Saturday Night Live." His repeated exhortation to "Save the liver!" captured Child's forceful personality and occasional tendency toward self-parody. An even better tribute was offered by John Candy, with a spot-on impression of Child boxing with Fred Rogers in "Battle of the PBS Stars" on "SCTV."

Click for more Julia after the jump.