“Julie & Julia” is based on the books “My Life in France” by Child with Alex Prud’homme, and “Julie & Julia” by Julie Powell. The delightful Amy Adams plays Powell, who undertook the challenge of cooking each one of the recipes in Julia Child’s famous book interpreting French cooking for English-speaking followers. After the feat, which Powell recounted in a blog, generated attention, she wrote a book about her accomplishment. According to the film, Child wasn’t pleased with Powell.

Both dramatic and good-humored, the film abounds in culinary delights, all appetizingly photographed, but it is the combination of two simultaneous stories and the biographical elements that add spice to the stew. There are some problems in smoothly juxtaposing the life of Julie and that of Julia, much of it in different time frames. That makes for occasional straining.

But every scene with Streep puts the film back on track and enables her to shine and create an indelible image. Adams is good too, although she has to use extra charm as an actress to compensate for the fact that Julie is portrayed as an egocentric character so swept up in her experiment that she freezes out almost everything else. Such a person can be a pain. The point is made when Chris Messina as her husband has enough and temporarily leaves her. But Adams is lovely to watch no matter what.

Stanley Tucci is effective as Julia’s husband, who emotionally endures and supports her obsession with cooking. He is a diplomat, and Ephron makes a point of showing how he is humiliated by a McCarthy era investigation into his life. There are some pleasingly tender scenes between Paul and Julia. The supporting cast adds color, and what can be bad about scenes of Paris?