Julie Powell, the author best known for her memoir Julie and Julia, died aged 49 at her home in Olivebridge, New York. The New York Times said that her death was confirmed by her husband Eric Powell. She died of cardiac arrest.

Powell rose to fame by chronicling her efforts to prepare all the recipes from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in her home kitchen. Starting off as a blog, she then adapted it into a full-length book Julie and Julia. It inspired a movie of the same name starring Meryl Streep, which became a massive hit.

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Who was Julie Powell? 

Julie Powell was born on April 20, 1973, and her original name was Julie Foster. Her parents were John and Kay Foster and she has a brother named Jordan Foster. She was brought up in Austin, Texas, and studied theater and creative writing at Amherst College. 

Powell started a blog on Salon while she was working at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. The blog started in August 2022 and was called the Julie/Julia Project. In the blog, she chronicled her attempt to cook all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The blog quickly gained popularity and she signed a deal with Little, Brown and Company for a book.

The book, first published in 2005, was called Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. Although the book received mixed reviews, it sold in large volumes. In 2009, Le Cordon Bleu, the cooking school from where Julia Child got her degree, awarded her an honorary diploma.

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In 2009, a film based on the book as well as the autobiography of Julia Child was made. It starred Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell. 

Powell has gone on to write another book called Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession. She also wrote a commentary piece on Salon about a Food Network reality show called The Julia Child Challenge. She was not involved in the show in any way.

Her husband, Eric Powell, was an editor with Archaeology.