I want ot pull a Julie Powell…

You know… Julie Powell… THE “Julie “of Julie and Julia — the infamous food blog, book and recent movie???? She is the food blogger that kind of started it all  for us.

Embarrassingly, I never read the blog or the book and didn’t even see the movie until last Sunday… on a flight down to Tampa. Better late than never I always say. In other words, I actually loved the movie and plan to read the blog… entry by entry — as I find the time. I will probably skip the book… but while perusing books at BJ’s today, I noticed she actually has a new book out — Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession. Sounds kind of interesting — I will need to add it to my x-mas wish list (along with the main topic of Julie and Julia, Mastering the Art of French Cookingby the one and only Julia Childs).

In any case, I was inspired by the movie. But I would be annoying if I copied what she did — like spending a year cooking all the recipes out of one cookbook. Rather, I’ve decided to do a monthly “Challenge” for the next year. I don’t want to start on January 1st because everyonestarts something ‘new’ in January. Rather, I’m starting today. For each month, I will have a theme. Sort of like when I did the NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) entries in the past. In fact, for December, my challenge will beNaBloPoMo. For December, the theme is MITZVAH. I absolutely love this idea…. this time of year more than any other.

What exactly is a “Mitzvah” challenge you ask? Well, for the month of December, I need to give something, to someone, every day of the month, and then blog about it. Giving can be anything… volunteering your time, helping someone, cooking for someone, giving a gift, advice, you name it. The idea is that you act with kindness every day…

Each of the other months, from now until next December will have other ‘themes’. I need to come up with a list, but so far some of the things I’m thinking about are:

• Vegetarian  Month
• New Recipe Month
• Meat Month (obviously this one will be a challenge since I don’t eat meat!)
• Something New Month (where I will either eat or cook something new everyday)
• Dairy-free Month
• Gluten-free Month
• Cookbook Month (where I only cook recipes from my many, many cookbooks)
• Eat Local/Sustainably Month
• Etc.

I need to come up with the exact list of themes and then devise a schedule. It won’t be easy… and I”m not going to beat myself up over slip-ups… and will ultimately need one “cheat day” a week. I really want to give this a shot though. Anyone else want to join me? It would be fun to have a network of us doing this challenge. I’m also open for theme ideas (within reason!).