Julie, Julia, and Beer Trees! Oh My!

Two posts coming. This first one is being put out there pretty quickly as I need to run to meet people to go the Alumni game AND I just received an amazing e-mail that was so nice to simply have that I just need to put it out there quickly before I lose that warm-n-fuzzy feeling ... okay copy-pasties cos I’m lazies:

To: Heather McDonald
From: Fia Ramo
Date: 05-03-2009 11:24AM
Subject: Food Writing in Movies

I thought you might enjoy the movie trailer for a summer movie about Julie Powell and Julia Childs. Julie & Julia combines stories from both Julie Powell's book "Julie & Julia" and Julia Child's book "My Life in France" and is based on two real life people.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/04/29/official-trailer-for-nora-ephrons-julie-and-julia/

Oh Lit-131-006H, I miss it already.


To: Fia Ramo
From: Heather McDonald
Date: 05-03-2009 4:26 PM
Subject: Food Writing in Movies

Fia,

I am ridiculously excited about this movie. So excited I might have to plan a Seventeen Cookbook-style French-themed party prior to the premier. I read Julie Powell's blog regularly when she was on her mission, and loved it; sadly, I *hated* the book for a variety of "only-a-writing-teacher-would-think-this-way" reasons. But I am psyched for Meryl Streep as Julia Child and I think the movie will be wonderful.

Also, your extra credit response made me shoot coffee out of my nose. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Prof. McDonald

1) This movie looks fun, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams are wonderful actresses and I love a good chick-flick. Plus, FOODWRITING!FTW and I want to check out the blog and books now.

2) What a lovely and personal response. Can I please take this class again? So. Much. Fun.

3) I made my professor shoot coffee out of her nose. Totes got the extra credit points! I used a lot of inside jokes from the class, but that's what the questions were about. Beer trees, Michael Pollan being in love with Joe Sallatin, Michelle Truong not having experience as a homosexual male Veitnamese chef in the early decades of the 20th century in Paris so the hell does she think she is writing a book about just that topic, home gardening, and so many drunken and dirty references... GREATEST CLASS EVER. Keep in mind I wrote these in an utter state of exhaustion. I'd been working on my final in the ASC computer lab for over 3 hours at that point but for your enjoyment, well MY enjoyment, and posterity's sake:

1) Describe how two writers we’ve read this term would care for a beer tree. Explain your reasoning for their methods of care based solely on each writer’s writing style.

Michael Pollan would kill the beer tree as I’m afraid it is far too unnatural. If it was a honey-mead tree I think he would go for it though, but only if he had the chance to care for it with Joe Salatin. If that was the case, we would never hear the end of the incredible benefits of honey-mead trees.
Monique Truong would care very deeply for her beer tree. She would raise it as her own, and pretend that she too had been a beer-tree when she was younger. But one day she would crack open one to many of her tree’s “fruits” and just lie in the grass in a moment of complete self reflection and wonder aloud, “Who do I think I am?!”


2) Prof. McDonald decides to give up coffee for a whole year. What happens to the coffee business, her classes, and her ability to function?

Somewhere on a D.C. rooftop, rows of beer trees are planted by a young woman with an injured pinky wearing a rather large hat, because a large gardening hat is a necessity when anonymously planting beer trees. Just like faeries die when someone claims that he or she does not believe, so do Starbucks and small coffee shops close every day Professor McDonald proclaims that she has given up coffee. While only three hundred and sixty-five coffee shops close that awful year, all of D.C, and parts of Virginia and Maryland mourn as the citizens have been reduced to using only shipped in instant-Starbucks.
Somewhere around AU, a young professor in a large hat stumbles out of an honors literature course about food, writing, and food writing. She falls to her knees in the center of the quad, which has fallen silent of course, and she raises her face and fists to the skies as she yells, “DAMN THEM! DAMN THEM ALL! DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL FOR INVENTING THE BEER TREE!” And then she totally blacks out because, HELLO, she is completely shwasted and sauced to the max! I mean, no coffee and only beer trees? Totally unhealthy.

So much fun. Must be off. Another post later.

Beer Tree