Julie Powell had a huge following after she chronicled her attempt to cook every recipe from Julia Child's book on her website and then turned the story into a memoir. Eric Powell told The New York Times that his wife had died of a heart attack. Powell was older than 50.
Powell started The Julie/Julia Project when she was 30 years old. Powell challenged herself to cook every recipe in Child's book and recorded her experience with a down-to-earth, playfully prickly and profanity-laden tone that challenged preconceived notions about food writing and who was allowed to write about food.
Powell's journey was profiled by a writer for The New York Times in 2003 and Little, Brown & Company decided to turn it into a book. The book sold over a million copies and became the basis of a movie about Powell and Child.
Her husband told The New York Times that she was happy with the changes made to the film and that she was okay with them. It was Ephron's last movie before she died.
Powell's second book, Cleaving: A Story Of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, was not well received. The story of her having an affair and her husband having an affair followed her learning to be a butcher. She never published another book after that.
Professional writing was brought into the modern age as a result of her first success. It was an early win for the democratization that the internet offered when it was still relatively new, and her life underscored the dream that anyone with a good idea can be successful just by being themselves.
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