The film Julie and Julia opens today and tells the story of America's pioneering TV chef the late Julia Child and a food blogger, Julie Powell.

The two Js couldn't be more different in their cooking styles: while Julia cooked with the precision of a scientist, Julie has confessed to being clueless in the kitchen frequently salvaging a recipe with butter.

Powell's favourite Child recipes are the fragrant braised dishes like boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin "that cook for a long time and make your kitchen smell great." She also adores bifteck saute berce With shallot and white wine sauce, baked cucumbers, garlic soup with poached eggs and eggs baked in ramekins with curry sauce on top. For dessert: chocolate cake and chocolate mousse.

Below she reveals more of her food secrets...

15. Food Blog: juliepowell.blogspot.com

What inspires you to write a food blog?

Well, I was inspired to begin the Julie/Julia Project by sheer, blinding, existential panic. Turning 30, stuck in a job I hated.... cooking was what I turned to for comfort, Julia Child was who I turned to for structure and inspiration, and writing about it in a blog was what I turned to to find meaning. And, as it turned out, my voice as a writer. I didn't realise it when I started out (the Julie/Julia Project began in 2002, before anyone, least of all me, had much notion of what a blog really was and could do), but it turned out my readers - I called them "bleaders," cornily enough - wound up being pivotal in helping me develop my voice as a writer.

What sort of posting really gets your readers excited (good or bad)?

People love drama, so I find that the cliffhanger postings - "Will she finish the aspic?", etc... rouse much excitement. Whenever I write about Alice Waters or Republicans, or use "fuck" too often, I get many expressions of both delight and ire.

Which cookbook can you not do without and which chef is your hero/heroine?

Well, Julia Child - who is not, of course, a chef - changed my life, or rather inspired me to change my own, and I will always be in her debt. Though I don't cook out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking all the time, it is one of my most treasured possession and truly a work of genius.

Lately, I find that the book I crack open most often is Madhur Jaffrey's "World Vegetarian." This is a bit odd, since I am a determined carnivore, but nowadays I'm much more concerned about where my meat comes from, and so I eat less of it. Jaffrey's is the first vegetarian cookbook I've ever read that doesn't make me want to hurl it against a wall. I have never made anything from it that wasn't wholly delicious and satisfying.

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