Julie Powell obituary

On her way back from work Julie would buy such curios as lobster, veal kidneys and beef marrow; dinner would be on the table at 10pm at the ‘very earliest’. Photograph: Sipa US/Alamy

In the early 2000s, when blogging was new, writers dreamed of turning their online endeavours into media sensations. Julie Powell, who died aged 49 of cardiac arrest, was one of blogging’s earliest success stories.

Started in August 2002, The Julie/Julia Project detailed her messy attempts to cook her way through an American classic cookbook, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1. Powell cooked 524 meals in 365 days, documenting the chaos of her tiny apartment kitchen and her personal life alongside her recipe-wrangling.