The Power of Movies to Sell books

"Mastering the Art of French Cooking" recently sold 22,000 copies in one week, more than the book sold in any one YEAR since it was published in 1961

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/24julia.html?em

The reason of course is " Julie & Julia", the new Meryl Streep movie about Julia Child and the NY blogger Julie Powell.

For those whose cooking consists of "open a tin of this" and a "can of that". Mastering can be a pretty intimidating cookbook. The recipes are long, involved and assume you have basic cooking skills, not to mention a whole lot of time: the recipe for cassoulet is six pages. There are also no colour pictures--just line drawings where necessary. And, of course, butter. Butter in everything.

But as HC will attest from her summer in France, the French eat differently than North Americans.

Mireille Guiliano, the author of “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” said there are reasons why American and French bodies respond differently to the same fatty ingredients.

For starters, the French eat more fruits and vegetables, and they walk more, she said. And then there is portion size. “The French simply eat much less,” she said.

And no seconds.

If you haven't seen the movie, go. It's worth the price of admission to see Meryl Streep pull off one of the great, loving roles in her career. Damn, you knew she was having fun