In 1967, living in Paris, I was delighted to find a copy of a book about French cooking in English (I couldn’t cook and read French at the same time). The book by Julia Child and her French collaborators hassince been hailed as a classic. I still use it for pate brisee (with accents), boeuf bourguignon, and the dry marinade for roast pork. From time to time I read itwith the thought of trying something new one of these days.A few years back there appeared a blog by a woman cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Subsequently a book appeared, Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. Now a Nora Ephron movie is on the horizon.I grabbed a copy of Julie and Julia in a bookstore the other day to see what it was like to cook the great bookfrom beginning to end.But that’s not the story—really. The author,a bored, unhappy Texan transplanted to New York, who hates her job, and drinks too much, has taken a classic cook book and used it to create a self-aggrandizing and vulgarmemoir that feeds offJulia Child, turning a silk purse into a pig’s ear.Will the movie restore Child’sluster and wit? I guess we’ll see next week.