Julia Child’s cookbooks: hot hot hot

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This weekend, the movie ‘Julie & Julia’ took second place at the box office, which is pretty hot. But Julia Child’s ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ is even hotter.

By Sunday, Pasadena bookstore Vroman’s sold out of the first volume of ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking.’ The tome, which Child coauthored and plays a central role in the film, is credited with introducing French cuisine to the American mainstream.

The movie is based in part on the blog ‘The Julie/Julia Project,’ which became the nonfiction book ‘Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously.’ In it, author Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams in the film) chronicled her efforts to cook every recipe in ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ in a single year.

But Julia Child’s new-found success hasn’t been limited to ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking,’ which currently tops Amazon’s bestseller list. Her co-written autobiography, ‘My Life in France,’ and ‘Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom’ have also been hard to keep on Vroman’s shelves.

It’s been five years since she died, but as an author, Julia Child is one hot tomato.

-- Carolyn Kellogg