There was not a television talk show whose stage she did not grace, a comedian or impressionist who didn't include her voice, her intonations, her appearance her impromptu narratives as part of their act. Julia Child was so unique that she was parodied by virtually every comedian worth his or her salt. She was enshrined in the comedic pantheon when Dan Akroyd on SNL, parodied her coping spritely, effervescently, with cooking mistakes, accidents and a blood-spurting, near-death experience.

America had a true love affair with Julia Child. She was widely considered the woman who "took the fear out of cooking," at a time when most women cooked dinners rather than brought in or ordered out, a time also before the fast food- obesity epidemic that is today's state of mind and of body. It was a time before taking your kids to McDonalds was presented as an act of familial love.

The audience at Julie and Julia laughed and guffawed; loud, robust, knowing laughs at so many moments in the film, moments between husbands and wives, between sisters, between girl friends and between bloggers and their readers and between women and themselves.

It wasn't just what writer/director Nora Ephron did with dialogue and what she pulled from the anecdotes and memories of the books she drew from as source material,-- Julie Powell' Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, and Julia Child's autobiography, My Life in France. It was also what she did with script construction, paralleling the lives and hilarious, sad, poignant, triumphant moments of middle-aged adults in the 1940s and young adults in the 1990s.

In the film, Julie and Julia's lives intersected -- but only in the minds of the audience, never onscreen. They shared in common only their love affair with the art of cooking, an art through which both women discovered a passion and a raison d'etre that springs from unleashing a muse-orchestrated, monomaniac reservoir of pent-up élan. They also savored the valued uplift of a husband's supportive, mightily tested, love.

The filmmakers were also brave. They risked making a movie about someone likely unknown to the current gold standard of marketing -- those under 30. Moreover, did they did not execute the Hollywood shuffle of mass marketing and dumbing down to get it done. The movie is smart. The dialogue is smart. The problems, entertainingly explored, were presented with wit and panache.

Yet, as reality teaches us, little in art is perfectly conceived and birthed in rarified air. No film without a sugar daddy is produced in the absence of some commercial fear and self-protecting countermeasure.

In the case of Julie and Julia, the fear was that there simply would not be enough of an audience for a naked plot of Julia Child on her own. So, the counterpoint of Amy Adams' Julie Powell, her blog, and her thirtysomething social network was called in; perhaps to make the studios and the marketing folk less wary, not unreasonably hopeful that there would be the magical crossover that gets young adults and older adults to eat at the same table of entertainment.

Hey, you do what you have to do to get a project greenlighted. I thought it worked pretty well. Some critics felt that Adams' Powell simply could not compete with Streep's Child. Overstated, I think. And let's face the facts: who in their right mind wants to share the screen with Meryl Streep, she who routinely makes the most mundane word, line or glance erupt off the screen like the opening note of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue?

Ultimately, box office receipts will tell the tale. For certain, this movie is a total class act and, if it only draws those familiar with Julia Child and her outsized life, then we're most thankful that some caring people took the time, money and effort to make a class picture that adults can thoroughly enjoy and, young adults may grow into. After all, how often in contemporary movies does one spend two hours with a pair of marriages which really seem to work and not be just another lesson in why marriage is the biggest cause of divorce?

But why not read poule entrails and be optimistic. An AP news service report on trends indicate that copies of Child's cookbook are again flying off the shelves and enrollment is up in French cooking classes, as well as other cooking classes. Variety reports that Julie and Julia has run a respectable second to G.I Joe, taking in 21 million plus on opening weekend with a limited opening. It also reports that the over 35 age group is the primary audience for the film; but it may not be the only audience. Some believe this might indeed be a major young folk-older folk, cross-over, audience pleaser.

Sales figures tally an upsurge in Child's opus, The Art of French Cooking, is possibly connected to the economic times and a national resolve to 'eat in' more. With that resolve comes the spirit of adventures in cooking. And what is more adventurous yet comfortably familiar to the palette than the American take on French cuisine?

I'm kidding, of course. Most of us rarely think about French cooking, never had real French cooking and perhaps consider French toast or French fries cuisine examples - they're not! Moreover, French restaurants are expensive and scarce. To be able to cook Francaise yourself is a savory idea. So, as Julia would say, "bon appetite."

Oh, yes, one more thing. The DVDs of Child's TV show, The French Chef, are also in exploding and expanding demand. Why not? They're suave, droll, funny, educational. And inspirational as well.

But what of French cooking and butter - so much butter!? Obviously, the cardiac consequences of butter infusions simply must take a back seat before this Gallic gustatory adventure. I'm sure that Scarlett O'Hara was once heard to exclaim to Rhett Butler: "Heart attack, Rhett? Cardiac arrest? From my boeuf bourguignon? Fiddle-dee-dee! We'll simply have to worry about that tomorrow."