Powell died of cardiac arrest on October 26 at her home in upstate New York, the New York Times reported. Her death was confirmed by Powell editor Judy Clain, who is also editor-in-chief of Little, Brown. “She was a brilliant writer and a bold, original person, and she will not be forgotten,” Clain said in a statement. “We send our deepest condolences to everyone who knew and loved Julie, either personally or through the deep bonds she created with the readers of her memoir.” Powell’s 2005 book Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen was made into the hit movie Julie & Julia, directed by Nora Ephron, with the author played in the film by Amy Adams, while Meryl Streep plays Child. Her sophomore and final effort—titled Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession—was a bit jarring in its honesty. Powell opened up about having an affair, the pain of loving two men at once, her love of BDSM and even wrote about self-punishing sex with a stranger. “People coming from the Julie & Julia movie and picking up Cleaving are going to be in for an emotional hit,” he told The Associated Press in 2009. “I don’t think it’s going to be a Nora Ephron movie.” Powell began their relationship in 2004 as she was putting the finishing touches on her first book – a time, she writes, when she was “starry-eyed and vaguely unhappy and had too much time on my hands”. By 2006, she had landed an apprenticeship at a butcher shop two hours north of New York City, which offered her an escape from her broken marriage and a place to explore her childhood curiosity with butchers. “The way they held a knife in their hand was like an extension of themselves,” Powell said. “I’m a very clumsy person. I don’t play sports. This kind of physicality is really foreign to me, and I really envy it.” Powell is seen in her New York City apartment in September 2005. Her cooking blog led to a book deal and the movie Julie & Julia, directed by Nora Ephron. (Henny Ray Abrams/The Associated Press) The book explores the relationship between the butcher and her own tortured romantic life. At one point, while cutting through the connective tissue in a pig’s leg, he writes: “It is sad, but also a relief, to know that two things so closely bound together can be separated with so little violence, leaving smooth surfaces instead of bloody pieces.” Her book influenced a growing interest in old-school butchery, and her experience slicing meat led her to actually eat less of it. He was an advocate of humane farmed and slaughtered animals. “People want to get their hands dirty. People want to be involved in the process. People want to know where their food comes from,” Powell said. “People don’t want the mystery anymore.” She is survived by her husband, Eric;
