I have a confession to make – I’m the type of “cook” that collects recipes … I pull them out of magazines, buy cookbooks on impulse, ask friends for new recipes to try … and then they gather dust! Is it fear of failure? Is it knowing that anything outside the normal repertoire will be met by turned-up noses from my kids? I’m not sure what drives that characteristic of mine, but I’m looking forward to reading about what drove Julie Powell to cook each recipe in Julia Child’s masterwork.
Here’s what I’ll be reading:
Julie & Julia, the bestselling memoir that’s “irresistible….A kind of Bridget Jones meets The French Chef” (Philadelphia Inquirer), is now a major motion picture. Julie Powell, nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, resolves to reclaim her life by cooking in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child’s legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a new-found respect for calves’ livers and aspic, but a new life-lived with gusto. The film version is written and directed by Nora Ephron and stars Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia.
I tend to enjoy books in this trend, “a year of XXX.” This one is subtitled “my year of cooking dangerously,” which I connected with immediately!
Want to get in on the running for one of FIVE copies being offered by Hachette? Simply leave a comment below, telling me which cookbook or cooking magazine you refer to again and again. Entries will be accepted until midnight on July 4, with the winners being announced on July 5. Giveaway is restricted to US/Canada mailing addresses only, no PO Boxes.
Please note my new giveaway guidelines: In an effort to cut down the time I spend administering giveaways, I will no longer e-mail winners. Of course you read my blog posts every day 
, but do mark your calendar to check back for the winning names on July 5. If I don’t hear from the winners in 72 hours, I’ll draw replacements. You’re welcome to sound off about this new policy in Comments; feedback is always appreciated.
update: Congratulations to the winners! This post is now closed to comments.
Ooh, I remember hearing about when the author was offered/accepted this book deal! I really want to read this. I really love Bon Appetit magazine; several recipes from its pages have been made multiple times!
I would live to be signed up for this! I have a lot of old Quick Cooking magazines I look at for ideas, but the rest of my cookbooks don’t get used a lot.
I have heard great things about this book. I am not a great cook, so my go-to books are “The New Basics” or Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything.” The simpler, the better!
The cookbook I go to more than any other is my Better Crocker cookbook. It doesn’t even have a cover anymore but I’m NOT giving it up.
I tend to refer most often to Cooking Light and Every Day with Rachael Ray, as well as Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. But, like you, I also collect WAY more recipes than I use (or ever will). Same for books.
Still, I’d be delighted to win this one. (And your new policy sounds just fine … whatever makes things easier for you!)
I’d love to read this book! I started cooking in the last year or so after 28 years of thinking I’d never be able to make anything edible. I love the recipes in _Real Simple_; I often refer back to _Betty Crocker Basics: How to Cook & Entertain with Confidence_, the book that taught me all cooking terminology and made me feel more at ease in the kitchen.
Haha…I do the same thing. I cut out, pull out, save recipes and then never use them. I end up having a pile on my microwave
I tend to use allrecipes.com or a website. Or sometimes I’ll use recipes I find on Shape or Fitness magazine. Thanks for the giveaway!
I enjoy cooking, and I love to find new recipes. Cooking Light magazine is a favorite. The funny thing about that magazine is that I can find ten recipes to try in one issue, then I won’t find anything in the next three issues that I am interested in.
Looking forward to reading the book – hope I can squeeze it in before the movie comes out! I rely on What’s Cooking magazine for quick and easy recipes, especially those that let you use shortcuts, like a chocolate-peanut butter cookie recipe that uses a devil’s food cake mix as the base. Yum!
I love Cooking Light. It’s my favorite recipe source. The ingredients can be a bit pricey at times, but the food is always soo good!
I would love to read this book — I love books about people taking on challenging tasks for a year like this!!! There is a niche genre of books like these I’ve found! I’m not a great cook and I tend to abandon cookbooks very easily but I just found one that is really working for me — The Decadent Diet Cookbook by Devin Alexander. I’ve made about 5 things from it so far and they’ve all be good. The basis of the book is your favorite foods cooked in a healthier way. I like it because the recipies don’t require 400 special ingredients and she gives you good techniques for cooking that a bad cook like myself needs. I’ve found my food is tasting better — and most of the recipies are not more than 300 calories (or about 7 or 8 Weight Watchers points) which works very well for our weight loss efforts!
Oh, this giveaway is perfect for me. I recently finished reading My Life in France, and want to read this book too before the movie comes out! Plus, I looooove to cook. The cooking magazine I regularly go back to is Bon Appetit – I read it cover-to-cover the day it arrives in my mailbox. I have several cookbooks I love, but Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is a great resource cookbook. My copy is a year old, and is already falling apart.
The two places I revert most to when digging up recipes are: AllRecipes.com and ye old Church cookbook
One gives me new and fresh recipes, the other brings me comfort food. I couldn’t live without either one!
And maybe it isn’t fear of failure, so much as comfort in the rut?
I turn to Nigella Lawson time and again. I refer to all her cookbooks, but I’d say I flip through (and bake from!) HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS most often. It’s such a wonderful baker’s cookbook.
I enjoy cooking and have been consulting Giada’s cookbooks. I enjoy her recipes and her variety of food greatly. My favorite cooking magazine which I think is easy to follow and has lovely photos is Gourmet.
Taste of Home is the cooking source I refer to again + again. Healthy easy good!
I would love this book. In fact I had it in my hand to purchase recently–until common sense returned to me and I put it down! My absolute cookbook is Fix and Forget:lightly, which is a crockpot book. My favorite magazine is Simply Delicious by Taste of Home.
*smiles*
Kim
My favorite magazine is Kraft Food and Family. It’s a free publication that comes out four times a year and also includes an email newsletter with more recipes and tips. What I like about it is the fact that the recipes use ingredients that are easy to find and most of the meals are quick and easy to make. With my busy schedule, it sure comes in handy.
i refer to Cooking Light
My mom has a Betty Crocker book that she got when she married my dad. I always used it during the holidays to make cookies, pastries, cakes, etc. Now, as I’m older, I’m using it more for the recipes as well – the dinners, lunches, breakfasts. Who knew cook books had things other than desserts!!
Like others commenting here, I frequently use Allrecipes.com; but the cookbook most used is the standard Better Homes and Gardens cookbook which was a HS graduation gift from my home ec teacher in 1957! Please enter me in this giveaway, and I have no problem with your giveaway guidelines. In fact I appreciate the fact that my chances are equal with everyone else, since I don’t blog, twitter, or any of the other things that often give extra entries. Thanks.
I would love to read this book. I have one magazine, Penzey’s One which they just stopped publishing and for a cookbook, my mother handed down a 1950 something copy of the Culinary Institute’s cookbook. I find myself pulling it out all the time, especially when it is something basic that I just forgot how to do. EVERYTHING is in this cookbook.
I am sorry to say that even though I follow your blog, the chances of me actually checking back may be slim. I work full time, and follow many blogs. It would be much better for everyone to receive an email. But, what can you do…..
I am not a blogger, but I tweeted at ccqdesigns.
I’m the type of cook who collects cookbooks and recipes and they gather dust. But my problem is that I seem to be pathologically incapable of following a recipe. I think I’m going to make one thing, but it always ends up as something else. And of course I never write anything down, so poor Mr. BFR has fond memories of particular meals that can never be reproduced.
I’m curious about the book, but please don’t enter me in the giveaway; it would probably sit in the TBR until it too gathered dust.
the two i refer to constantly are the maker’s diet and the whole foods cookbook.
good housekeeping also has great easy recipes every month that i love.
There are two cookbooks I refer to again and again. One is an old hardcover Pillsbury cookbook. The other is an old church ladies cookbook from my mother’s church. Some of those old tried and true recipes still stand the test of time. I’d love to win a copy of Julie and Julia!
Saveur!!!!!!
I borrowed this from the library a couple of years ago and loved it! I would love to have a copy of my own. I always like to check out allrecipes.com to find something new and different.
Honestly, I refer to Julia Child’s the most–I certainly have not mastered the art of French cooking, but I’m slowly trying to!
I refer to Saveur magazine constantly.
Don’t enter me – just here to say hello and tell you that I really enjoyed this book! It’s a fun one and I’m looking forward to the movie.
I refer to Taste of Home quite a bit=)
Thanks for an awesome giveaway!
Luvdaylilies at bellsouth dot net
How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson – I can’t claim that I’ve ever actually made anything from it, but I like to admire the pictures and enjoy Nigella’s style.
I have been using the Better Homes And Gardens Cookbook FOREVER. I would be lost without it
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Don’t enter me in the contest as I already have the book. I just wanted to comment on your comment about collecting recipes. I laughed because I do the same. Remember those two recipes you mailed me a while back? Still waiting for me to use.
My Better Homes and Gardens “New Cook Book” circa 1978 is my favorite all time cookbook. I probably have about 70 cookbooks and use about 15 of them regularly but this one has pages falling out and some that I can go to so easily because I use the recipes over and over.
I love this book.
I am a fan of cooking light. I also like the magazine Diet and Nutrition, the had an awesome mac and cheese recipe, where butternut sqwash is one of the major ingredients. It was gobbled up when by my cousin R was over, and he’s only 11 years old or so.
I’m a vegetarian so I’m always frantically trying to look for recipes that I could use that don’t require meat and I can make stuff out of with the little food I have. There’s one I just got called The Vegetarian Cookbook, and I’m so excited to try and make something with it.
leavemespeechless@redwall.net
[...] Dawn at She is Too Fond of Books is giving away five copies of Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. You can also enter to win it at Carol’s [...]
I always go to my trusty old binder, it has all the recipes I have printed online and put together.
My favorite is Cooks Illustrated.
1001 Cookies is my cookbook of choice. Or maybe it’s the cookies but I like it. jessica(at)fan(dot)com
Hi, I have just moved to California from the UK and still use lots of my old cookbooks written by British writers but looking for something new. I have spent many wonderful holidays in France sampling the fabulous cuisine and I am also looking for a new direction in my life so look forward to reading this book.
I am most definitely not a cook! I have my handy Rachael Ray cookbook I got free for being her lackey for a semester, and occasionally I check recipes in Country Living magazine, because I secretly wish to be a country house-owning homemaker.
Enter my name–I can’t wait to read/see this!
OOOOOO!!!!! PLEASE!!! PICK ME!!!!!
I have a cookbook called Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely that I use all the time! Her recipes don’t have a lot of exotic ingredients and are very quick and easy, but good. It’s my everyday cookbook- not one I would consult if I wanted to do anything fancy.
Hey I have an idea.. what if you put the winner in the comment section, than anyone who clicked on “notify me of followup comments via email” would get the notice. Just a thought!
My dog-eared, torn, dripped on, would-be-lost-without-it cookbook is “The Joy of Cooking”. My mom had it out and open on the counter everyday when I was a child to the point that my kitchen doesn’t look quite right unless I can see that cookbook on the counter! It’s also a wonderful book and has saved me many a time!
I’m really looking forward to reading this book!
Amy
Aimala02@yahoo.com
Love, love, love Bon appe’tit…have enjoyed this magazine for longer than I care to remember…alas my other half is at the “I don’t have to try anything new” age so it’s up to my girlfriends to bear the brunt of my experiments…Would also love,love, love to have you pick me to win the book!
Even with all the sophisticated cook books out there today and access to millions of internet recipes, I still go back to the cookbook bible – Betty Crocker.
Oh yeah. I forgot to say, Please enter me in this book giveaway.
Thanks.