Julie Powell has died aged 49, her family has announced.
The food writer, who first rose to fame by trying to reproduce the culinary success of Julia Child, died from cardiac arrest at her home in Olivebridge, New York.
As part of her popular self-deprecating-style food blog The Julie/ Julia Project, Powell spent a year in 2002 documenting her attempts at cooking all of her recipes in her tiny apartment kitchen.
She cooked all 524 recipes from her mother’s well-worn copy of Julia Child’s 1961 classic “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” which led to the blog, being turned into a hugely successful film.
Julie was credited with upending food writing with her fresh, spirited and sometimes crude style.
Writer and director Nora Ephron turned her blog into an Oscar-nominated 2009 film starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams called Julie and Julia.
Julia's husband, Eric Powell, confirmed the news of her death to The New York Times.
She is survived by her husband, brother Jordon and parents.
She was born on April 20, 1973, in Austin, Texas, to John and Kay Foster.
Her dad was a lawyer while her mum stayed home to care for her and her brother. She later went back to university to complete a master’s degree in design from the University of Texas.
Her brother has described Julie, who graduated from Amherst College in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in theatre and fiction writing, as both bookish and dramatic as a child.
“She loved to be onstage, and loved just being over the top and having everyone watch her,” he said, adding, she was “the most experimental and sophisticated cook among us, and we were all people who cooked.”
Julie married in 1998, after meeting Eric when they were playing the romantic leads in a high school production of the Arthur Miller play All My Sons.
Her second book, published in 2009 took a deep dive into their relationship and she publicly detailed her struggle with an extramarital affair she had and, later, one her husband had.
Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession was not as well received as her first book - the consolidation of her blog posts - and was Julie's last book, although she did continue writing.
“She had so much talent and emotional intelligence,” Judy Clain, her editor, told the New York Times. “I only wish she could have found the next thing.”
