Julia Child's Cherry Clafouti for Julie & Julia & Last Week's Made with Love Winners

For those of you who follow More Than Burnt Toast you will know that I am always up for a challenge. Where this is a cause to promote or a friend to support I am there. The challenge......Helene of La cuisine d'Helene challenged us on Twitter to prepare a dish from Mastering the Art of French Cooking in anticipation of the release of the movie Julie & Julia. Today I prepared a classic dish using the bounty of fresh cherries available this time of year here in the valley.
The photos were less than satisfactory since the entire city, and probably the skies for hundreds of kilometers are covered in dense smoke. Thousands of people on the Westside of the lake have been evacuated due to the fires. It makes us fearful because it reminds us of 2003 when hundreds of homes were lost, families displaced and 16 of the trestles on the historical Kettle Valley railway were burnt to the ground. You hear the constant whir of the helicopters as they drop their buckets into the lake to try and get the fires under control.

On a positive note, reminiscent of the 2003 fires, the city residents always band together and opens their hearts and homes to complete strangers and donate food and personal items to those that have been displaced. Lets hope the fires are put out soon...there is no rain expected. Update: So far the fires are on there way to being under control. We need some rain which in the Okanagan is not something that happens during the summer.

As food bloggers we have all been anticipating the new movie Julie and Julia since we first saw the trailer at the theatre. I expect Julie & Julia, the movie based on the bestselling memoir by Julie Powell to be "irresistible" not only to foodies like us but will tap into the psyche of a general audience to unleash their passions as well. It will bring food bloggers out of the closet and perhaps we can take photos of our dishes with gay abandon and in public and not be thought of as some crazy recluse cat ladies/gents...wink...wink....

The movie is the parallel of two lives based decades apart. Julie Powell, nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, resolves to reclaim her life by cooking for an entire year every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. As we know this would be quite a challenge. She found support from the blogging community with her blog the Julie/Julia Project.

Meryl Streep plays cooking maven Julia Child. Half of the movie chronicles Child's life in 1950s Paris, during which she learned to cook and co-authored her seminal work with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.

Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, who begins writing her blog to escape the frustration of her bureaucratic job. Her unexpected reward is a new life lived with gusto and not just a new found respect for calves' livers and aspic. The film version is written and directed by Nora Ephron which is adapted from two books: My Life in France, Child's autobiography, written with Alex Prud'homme and the memoir by Julie Powell.

The movie comes out August 7th. Celebrate life!!!!!

**Julia Child's Cherry Clafouti**

1 -1/4 cups milk
2/3 cup sugar, divided
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
3 cups cherries, pitted
powdered sugar, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using a blender, combine the milk, 1/3 cup sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour, and blend.
Lightly butter an 8-cup baking dish, and pour a 1/4-inch layer of the blended mixture over the bottom. Set remaining batter aside.

Place dish into the oven for about 7-10 minutes, until a film of batter sets in the pan but the mixture is not baked through. Remove from oven (but don’t turn the oven off, yet).

Distribute the pitted cherries over the set batter in the pan, then sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Pour the remaining batter over the cherries and sugar.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 60 minutes, until the clafouti is puffed and brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve warm.

Servings: 6-8 for dessert, 4 for breakfast. (It tasted better than it looks!!!)