As the world turns

Research for the story on the business of food really clarifies how small the world has become for all of us compared to even a decade ago. Now it makes sense that the George Brown School in Toronto is working with a city in China to train chefs or with a culinary school in India, adding to its more traditional international relationship with Italy and France. We can talk about, read about and in most major cities we can even try Brazilian food and Tunisian food, among many other types of cuisine, in this shrinking world of ours.

And I was struck during my viewing of the film Julie & Julia how much like a dream the life of Julia Child seemed, with her entree into the male world of the Cordon Bleu School after dallying about taking hat-making courses or entertaining her husband's friends. How old-fashioned.

On the other hand, Julie's world was so much easier to understand: the frustrating job, answering the phone in her work pod decorated with various tokens of her hopes and dreams, lunching with friends who spent half their time on their blackberries and cell phones. She did quite spontaneously what many a job counsellor would have advised her to do -- she began to work on something she loved. Which brought her back to Julia and the Art of French Cooking and those life-changing 365 days when she tried each recipe.

This New York section of the film has been criticized as being too dark, too boring. To me, this was so much closer to reality than those lovely moments when Julia Child meandered into her first book deal. Good for Julia, and how wonderful for Julie that she lived a life we recognize and found her own pot of gold, courtesy of the blogosphere.