They never met, but Julie Powell feels a close connection to Julia Child. In 2002, Powell, a 29-year-old secretary, embarked on a mission to make all 524 recipes in Child's 1961 opus "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 365 days. Powell chronicled her experiences in a popular blog that's become a best-selling book - the newly published "Julie & Julia" (Little, Brown, 2005) is one of the most talked-about titles of the season.

"I was looking down the gun of 30 and I had been working temp jobs for a long time and I was in this terrible apartment with my husband in Long Island City, Queens, and I was just desperate and lost," recalled Powell on a recent visit to Boston. "I felt like I was destined to this life of mediocrity, and out of that I decided it would be a really good idea for me to cook out of this 40-year- old cookbook and that would solve my problems."