While you may never be able to own an actual kitchen gadget from Julia Child's kitchen (the Smithsonian has the complete contents of her Cambridge, Mass., kitchen on display here), you might be able to grab a set piece from the new Julia Child movie "Julie and Julia" -- if you happen to be anywhere near the New York metropolitan area this weekend.

The movie is Nora Ephron's melding of Julia Child's memoirs with those of Julie Powell, a Queens, N.Y., woman who blogged through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" over the course of a year.

The prop masters for Columbia Pictures are liquidating the set for the film -- starring Amy Adams (as Powell) and Meryl Streep (as Child) -- from a warehouse in northern Brooklyn, N.Y. this weekend. Slashfood popped in this morning to peruse the gadgetry used to fill seven kitchen movie sets, including the famed cooking school Le Cordon Bleu.

More pictures and the sale location after the jump.

Ad Age reports (subscription) that sales of dark chocolate are up 40% this year, in increase leading to $1.62 billion in sales, after only a 29% increase from 2003-2005. One of the reasons for the increase is the fact that this past year has seen many reports that dark chocolate and cocoa are good for your health, in addition to chocolate bars promoting themselves as health foods. All the media coverage of the subject, on top of companies continually rolling out new dark chocolate products, has really made consumers more aware of dark chocolate and more willing to try it.

Any health benefits aside, consumers are learning to appreciate chocolates in the same way that they learned to appreciate different coffees so many years ago. Chocolate has nuances and the fact that people want to taste and learn about them is evidenced by the fact that more and more chocolates are stating their cacao percentages and countries of origin on the label.

At Luxist, Deidre announced that the wines collected by Jacques Chirac while he was the mayor of Paris will be auctioned later this year. The city has decided that the liability involved in keeping the collection - which could be damaged by floods or other accidents in the bowels of the Hôtel de Ville, where it is kept - is too high to make it worth the risk, not to mention the fact that the wine budget for the city has been slashed dramatically and they can't really afford the maintenance. The wine budget reduction is a reflection of the fact that the Parisians aren't drinking wine at the same rates they used to. For example, despite an equal number of receptions, only half the amount of wine is consumed now as it was during Chirac's time in office.

The 5,000 bottle collection is expected to bring in at least $600,000, as it contains many fine wines, including 191 bottles of 1976 Krug champagne and several bottles of 1990 Château Pétrus (worth more than $1,700 each).

It looks like Mario Batali is giving up on one of his New York eateries, Bistro du Vent, only 15 months after its opening. The Bistro is located on 9th St. in midtown Manhattan. It received reviews ranging from "not bad" to "deeply satisfying" and Frank Bruni gave it two stars, so the food isn't what is causing the sale. Its downfall was probably helped by the scandal that occurred last year, in which "four employees - including a chef - were caught on [security] videotape in a steamy after-hours sex romp" in the restaurant. Though the employees were subsequently fired, it's not the sort of thing that necessarily enhances a restaurant's reputation. Bistro du Vent has 12 years left on the lease and a $13,500 monthly rent.

Taking their media empire online, Reader's Digest has just announced the purchase of Allrecipes.com for $66 million. The publisher had only 7 magazines in its organization eight years ago, but today they have 20 in publication, as well as 40 websites. Their magazines include Taste of Home and Everyday with Rachael Ray, in addition to their flagship magazine, Reader's Digest. A company spokesman said "it instantly gives us Seattle cool and online credibility." The sale also gives them a large advertising revenue, as the major source of income for Allrecipes.com was through advertisements placed on their site.

Reader's Digest plans to make Allrecipes.com the center point of its online operations, the main portal to its other magazines and websites, potentially taking content from it to put into some of its printed media. Though spokespeople from the company denied it, the move is a fairly obvious attempt to attract younger readers to the pages of Reader's Digest.

Allrecipes.com is a user-supported community comprised of 1.8 million members, the majority of whom are home cooks. Membership, which is free, allows users to create online profiles, share recipes and leave feedback on the recipes that other users have posted. In February, it was the third most popular food site on the web in terms of page views, behind the Food Network and Kraft Foods.