Powell's movie is part blogger story and part Julia Child biopic; Meryl Streep plays Child, the famous home-cooking guru.

Now in preview screenings, Julie and Julia is already being savaged in food blogger circles. Chef, cookbook author and food blogger Virginia Willis' slam set the tone. While professing "no malice," it took Powell to task for daring to question Child's recipe, once:

One day she made a comment implying a recipe being wrong for roast chicken. I honestly don't remember what it was, but it struck me as being so disrespectful, completely without deference to Julia Child, that I stopped. What the hell did she know about food? Had she even heard of poulet au Bresse? Didn't go back.

Actually, the term Willis was looking for was poulet de Bresse, but we shouldn't interrupt a master bravely defending Child against a disrespectful (gasp!) acolyte:

People who happen to eat and are able to type are now our new food experts... Good grief, people who don't know how to begin to roast a ding dang chicken without following a recipe can be our new, ahem, food experts.

The bitter anger of a lone chef-writer? Hardly; other food bloggers quickly agreed. "Thank you, Virginia for... bravely expressing your frustrations," wrote one. Another: "Great post." Another: "A very well written article about something which, despite being an amateur food blogger myself, does frustrate me to no end." One blogger, after watching only a trailer, said Child "deserves more than being the other half to a Nora Ephron-penned romcom about a 'lowly cubicle worker' who blogs and struggles and cries and gets a book deal." Oh, plus also, Child thought Powell was a mere stunt artist! A clown, really! What a gleeful thing, to be able to report.

Powell, you see, has made enemies of her obsessive online peers. What infuriated them most was a 2005 New York Times op-ed decrying the "insidious... snobbery of the organic movement" — an all-out assault on the Church of Alice Waters. The reaction was furious: "today's stupidest piece of information;" "gratuitous... a coarse reductionist version of the... organic movement;" "[a] shockingly incoherent thing;" "ill-informed... erroneous." Or this, after Powell panned raw foodism in the Times: "Julie Powell... needs to stop huffing dust from the crypt of Erma Bombeck."

The prevailing "Slow Food" ideology of the culinary world is that the process of nourishment should be devolved — from massive centralized farms and feedlots and factories to local growers and aritsans and ultimately home gardens; from nutritionists and other food scientists to cultural and family traditions. And ultimately, we're supposed to replace slapdash restaurants with careful preparation in small, individual kitchens.

The irony is that here we have in Julie Powell the ultimate manifestation of these principles, an amateur who dived fearlessly into home preparations, devolving not only food but, via her blog, media as well, taking both cooking and communication into her own hands. And yet the foodie priesthood seems on the verge of ex-communicating her over these very traits. Sorry, guys, but Julie Powell is literally the embodiment of an organic movement. Buy some Milk Duds (TM), splash some fake butter on your Popcorn, pop open a Diet Coke (TM) and enjoy the film.

The company screwed up the (star)date and time of the big shindig, so while the affair was all snazzily decorated and big-name attended, the caterers had to scramble to Whole Foods and sadly laid out a spread of hummus and dinner rolls.

It's weird they didn't just use the replicators.

Boomp3.com

Celebrity power blogger David Hasselhoff could barely step away from his laptop at breakfast this morning. In between bites of strawberries and toast, Hasselhoff said, "Nobody takes a minute off on the internet. You have to be there every minute of the day looking and hunting for the next big story. So, you have to make it work for you and here I am with my laptop and my wireless card looking to break more stories before I finish my breakfast than Perez does in a week." The Hoff appeared to be unconcerned about the syrup he spilled on his laptop since it's still under warranty at the Apple store.

[Photo Credit: Flynet]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Newsroom's course of action to once again regain its status as the official celebu-haunt serving overpriced, mildly edible fare is radical, if not brilliant. The Verminators won't be needed here. Instead, we hear that Paris Hilton will be outfitted with a bullhorn, and her adorably, giggly, child-like voice will lure the rats away from the restaurant to the nearest production company, where one lucky rat will compete to become her new BFF. The losers will be killed and fed to her army of chihuahuas.

• Newsroom Cafe: I Smell A Rat [TMZ.com]

"Generally, this favorite industry lunch spot ... rocks a B, but they're trying to hide their current C rating behind a pole at the moment. ... What's weird about Newsroom is that I've gone there with a B rating, got the pasta, and had to go doodoo, but I went there with a C rating, got the vegan spinadilla (spinach quesadilla) and there were no bad doodoos to be found."

Caveat emptor, we suppose, but still — you could come up with worse excuses for taking the sluggish, post-holiday afternoon off. Take advantage of it while you can!

[Photo Credit: Flicker]

• "C" You Later Trendy L.A. Eatery! [TMZ]
• Newsroom Cafe [Yelp]

boomp3.com

A hungry photographer gazed longingly at Tori Spelling's hot dogs at an appearance at the Hollywood landmark, Pink's. The appearance was to promote the second season of Spelling's reality series, yet the photographer's attention was primarily focused on the two uneaten hot dogs mocking him from Spelling's tray. Naturally, it was assumed that the photographer was staring at Spelling's cleavage, but the photographer defended his care bear stare by stating he got up too late for breakfast and those dogs were beginning to look like a steak from Ruth's Chris. Spelling explained that she wouldn't be able to share any of her dogs since she was eating for two and that, if he truly was that hungry, he should just wait in line like everybody else.

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

CAA agents returning yesterday from a long weekend of team-building group pedicures at their Ojai retreat arrived back at the Death Star to discover their pampering wasn't yet over: According to Eater LA, popular Valley wiener purveyor The Stand officially opened a location right at 2000 Avenue of the Stars Monday, an outpost on the grounds of the evil agenting monolith's imposing new headquarters. While The Stand initially might not be able to match the offerings of the nearby Century City food court Fuddrucker's, whose delicious burgers made of fresh, thrice-ground infant-sirloin have become an agency lunch staple, if they quickly adapt to their built-in clientele's tastes, the convenience of being able to hastily gobble a baby-leg footlong just steps away from the office should make them an instant favorite of harried CAA drones.

• EaterWire: The Stand Opens in Century City [Eater LA]
• The Stand [The Standlink.com]
• Where To Eat Babies Now: CAA Dining Options In The Post-Explosion Era [Defamer]

• Previously: Fox News Cafe Fails Jack Bauer [Defamer]

Now that the Palm is planning to move, probably in 2008, its managers have held off on additions to the wall. Orders for caricatures of such regulars as Matt Damon, Ben Stiller, Enrique Iglesias, Vin Diesel and Adam Sandler are kept in a stack, awaiting head shots from their agents.

While the owners are committed to retaining the place's old-school charm, they aren't resistant to the kind of change that might attract the younger Hollywood set. Negotiations are currently underway with Lindsay Lohan's people to contract the starlet for a kind of experimental dinner theater, in which she would crash her Mercedes into the restaurant's valet stand once a night in a dramatic reenactment of her signature paparazzi-fleeing car chases.

• Hallowed Walls of Hollywood [LAT]

• In-N-Out 100x100 [WhatUpWilly]