Julie Powell, food writer of 'Julie & Julia', dies aged 49

She shot to fame after blogging for a year about making every recipe in Julia Child’s 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'

FILE - Author Julie Powell attends the premiere of "Julie & Julia" at The Ziegfeld Theatre, in New York, on July 30, 2009. Powell, who became an internet darling after blogging for a year about making every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” leading to a book deal and a film adaptation, died of cardiac arrest on Oct. 26, 2022, at her home in upstate New York. She was 49. (AP Photo / Peter Kramer, File)

Powell was played by Amy Adams in the film. Getty Images North America / AFP

(FILES) In this file photo taken on August 04, 2009 Author Julie Powell attends a screening of "Julie and Julia" at the Paley Center For Media in New York City. - Julie Powell, the writer whose yearlong mission to cook through Julia Child's "French Cooking" masterpiece was immortalized in print and film, has died of cardiac arrest, The New York Times said November 1, 2022. She was 49 years old. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)

Julie Powell at the 6th annual Moves Power Women awards at the W New York on November 6, 2009. Getty Images

Powell at the book signing for her second title 'Cleaving' in New York in 2009. Corbis via Getty Images

The author at TimesTalk at The Times Centre on May 7, 2010 in New York City. Getty Images via AFP

Julie Powell chops leeks to make potato leek soup, one of the first recipes in Julia Child's 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', on the left, in her apartment in New York on September 30, 2005. AP Photo

Food writer Julie Powell, who became an internet darling after blogging for a year about making every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, leading to a book deal and a film adaptation, has died. She was 49.

Powell died of cardiac arrest last Wednesday at her home in upstate New York, The New York Times reported. Her death was confirmed by Judy Clain, Powell's email and editor in chief of Little, Brown.

“She was a brilliant writer and a daring, original person and she will not be forgotten,” Clain said. ”We are sending our deepest condolences to all who knew and loved Julie, whether personally or through the deep connections she forged with readers of her memoirs."

Powell's 2005 book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen became the hit, Nora Ephron-directed film Julie & Julia, with the author portrayed in the movie by Amy Adams and Meryl Streep as Child.

Her sophomore and last effort — titled Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession — was a bit jarring in its honesty — Powell revealed she had an affair and spoke about the pain of loving two men at once.

“People coming from the movie Julie & Julia and picking up Cleaving are going to be in for some emotional whiplash,” she told The Associated Press in 2009. “I don’t believe it’s going to be a Nora Ephron movie.”

Powell began her affair in 2004 as she was putting the finishing touches on her first book, a time she writes when she was “starry-eyed and vaguely discontented and had too much time on my hands”.

By 2006, she had landed an apprenticeship at a butcher shop two hours north of New York City, which offered an escape from her crumbling marriage and a place to explore her childhood curiosity with butchers.

“The way they held a knife in their hand was like an extension of themselves,” she said. “I’m a very clumsy person. I don’t play sports. That kind of physical skill is really foreign to me, and I’m really envious of that.”

Her book tapped into the growing interest in old school butchery and her experience slicing meat actually resulted in her eating less of it. She was an advocate for humanely raised and slaughtered animals.

“People want to get their hands dirty. People want to participate in the process. People want to know where their food is coming from,” Powell said. “People don’t want the mystery anymore.”

She is survived by her husband, Eric.

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