Julie & Julia" is easily the best movie I've never seen.

My one-and-only saw it a couple of weeks ago and I've been snarfing up the results ever since.

We started last weekend with this dish of chicken smothered in mushrooms in a white wine cream sauce. I don't know its name, but I trust that it's as long as it is French. We followed that up in the middle of this past week with boeuf bourguignon.

I can't pronounce that. I don't care. This is a stew with beef braised in red wine, joyously garnished with garlic, onions and carrots. It's a culinary grand slam. As I savored each rich bite, I thought of the line the old coach used in "The Natural," when Roy Hobbs was polishing off an Italian dish:

"You can't spell it, but it eats pretty good, don't it?"

Indeed, it do.

Even our daughters, generally more of the pizza and macaroni-and-cheese persuasion, gave two thumbs up to their mom and the late Mrs. Child. Her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" has returned to best-seller list 49 years after its initial release, as fans coming out the movie theaters head to the bookstores.

It may be having impact at the butcher's counter, too. The evidence is sketchy, but when my wife went to Right By Nature in the Strip District for a suitable cut of beef, the butcher mentioned that he'd noticed an uptick in sales of chuck roast recently.

Rick Monroe, 46, who has been cutting meat half his life now, confirmed that with me when I talked to him after our meal. Two or three women have mentioned the movie to him, he said.

Dan Wholey of Wholey's Fish Market, which also sells items that never swam, said beef sales are definitely up but he's heard no talk of Julie or Julia. Dick Roberts of Giant Eagle said chuck roast has been on sale and is moving well, but roast items always tend to do better this time of year.

So I could be one of a lucky few hereabouts, even if The New York Times said recently that this film has meant that "boeuf bourguignon ... has probably never been made by so many American home cooks, at least not in August."

My wife has no intention of doing what Julie Powell did in the movie, tackling 536 recipes in 365 days. That's nuts, even if it wound up making Ms. Powell well more than a gravy-boatload of money. I'm thankful my wife is simply making her way slowly through the book, secure in the knowledge that means I'll be slowly slopping down the results.

Clearly, I have the better end of this deal. I have no talent for the kitchen. I can make a few pasta dishes. I can grill a little. That's it. Two of my wife's brothers are very good cooks. One was toasted at his wedding for the bouillabaisse he made while courting his wife, but that ain't me. I couldn't make bouillabaisse unless Campbell's had it in a can.

It's not that I haven't tried. Roughly five years ago, my wife, embarking on another My Fair Man project, tried to make a cook out of me. But there was one night when I placed a large slab of meat in a slow cooker, and it was my wife who did the slow burn. I'll spare you the details of what has come to be known as The Stew Incident, but I was immediately put back on the pots detail. The recent meals have shown me again that incompetence is not without its rewards.

I expect, in time, my wife's infatuation with Child's cookbook will pass, as most movie fads do. I remember the parking lot after seeing "Rocky" back in the 1970s, when I was among many guys attempting one-armed pushups like Sylvester Stallone. I think I managed one, but your nose only has to hit the asphalt once to get you over the idea of making that a habit.

Passing your nose over boeuf bourguignon seems a far better way to go.