This won me another chuckle of recognition.
“Or worse—who here among us has ever resorted to chasing a two-year-old with forkfuls of food?” I raised my own hand guiltily and saw a smattering of others rise too.
“Eventually, we seek a solution in the grocery store aisles. We troll with our shopping carts, searching for an easy fix. But there, on the shelves, some interesting products await.”
I hit the space bar on Nadja’s laptop, and the advertisement I’d torn from a magazine lit the screen. It was a photograph of a pod-shaped, sandwichlike item bursting with shiny peanut butter and dripping grape jelly. Marta and I had blown up the glossy image so dramatically that it became pixelated. The effect was garish—just like those backlit magnifying mirrors in hotel bathrooms that show every pore on your face in agonizing detail.
“This is an advertisement for the Zamwich,” I told the room. “You can buy them, frozen, at chain supermarkets. They come four to a box, but each Zamwich weighs just two ounces—about half the size of a real sandwich. And here’s the really strange thing.”
I stared into the audience and saw a few faces turned my way, but also a couple dozen milling toddlers who hadn’t noticed that I was speaking.
“People actually pay”—I did my best impression of Bob Barker—“three dollars and sixty-nine cents for these frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” I paused to let the horror sink in. “Now, maybe you’re thinking, What’s the harm? Why is this poor woman getting all lathered up about a PB and J?
“Let’s start with the practical aspects. I made a peanut butter sandwich the other day, and I timed myself. It took exactly two and a half minutes—three if you count washing the knife. But this product needs to be defrosted for sixty minutes before you”—I made my fingers into little quotation marks—“ ‘serve it.’
“But the real problem, as I see it, is that Zamwiches teach your child that sandwiches come from the store. That they spring, fully formed, from the box—complete with the crusts removed! If this product takes off, we might be faced with an entire generation of kids who won’t ever learn how to make a peanut butter sandwich.”
There was more laughter, and now I began to relax even more.
“Now, all of us here are young enough to have lived our entire lives surrounded by advertising. So we are hardened to it, aren’t we, ladies? We are savvy. It’s been decades, for example, since I realized that the dollies shown on TV are never as beautiful and fun once they come out of the pink package.”
There was more laughter when I flipped to the next slide, and I made a mental note to thank Marta for making it. A row of boxed Barbies stared out at the audience, their faces partly obscured by the glare of their plastic wrappers.
“Her name is Barbara!” one mother hollered, in a faux heckle, which then got its own ripple of laughter.
“And yet,” I said, waiting another moment for the laughter to die down. “And yet when it comes to our children, we are uniquely vulnerable. Tell me I’m not the only one.”
The room had grown quieter.
“I find the Zamwich to be a bit ridiculous. It makes me laugh. But there’s another trend that is much worse than overreaching in the marketing department. The latest products in the grocery store all claim a technological advantage over ordinary homemade foods. Let me show you what I mean.”
I flipped to the next slide. The screen was filled with taglines torn from several different advertisements.
Sunny Grahams—now a good source of calcium!
Only Yoyo adds GGL for digestive health!
Omega-3 DHA helps support brain development!
“I tore these three ads from a single parenting magazine. It should come as no surprise that every one of these products is expensive and high in sugar. But that’s not even what offends me. What I don’t like is the implication that I need their miracle ingredient to safeguard my children’s health. A guy in a lab coat adds that special something, and a healthy food is born. As if mothers haven’t done a good job—for centuries—making healthy foods at home in the kitchen. Then comes the fancy ad campaign designed to make you feel guilty about choosing the ordinary yogurt or the less-scientific cracker!”
I paused to take a breath. I was rolling along now, on my soapbox, in my zone, expounding on topics near to my heart. But a strange thing had happened while I prattled on about the grocery axis of evil. The room had actually gone quiet. The late-afternoon sun beamed straight into my line of sight. I shielded my eyes to try to discover whether my audience was rapt or perhaps sleeping.
The mothers stared back at me with an encouraging amount of interest. And it was then that I noticed how all that silence was possible. Perhaps it was the topic, or just that time of day, but every woman in the room had one breast exposed. I could see big cantaloupe boobs and also little lemon ones—breasts of every conceivable color. And perched on each one was an infant or toddler, all nursing at once. Dozens of little busy mouths. It was just about the strangest thing I’d ever seen. Strange, but tranquil.
I nearly lost track of what I was saying.
“So I . . . uh . . .” Right. I flipped to the last slide in my presentation. “I found these five words in another advertisement, and they’re the ones that scare me the most.” On the screen, in enormous type, the ad screamed: “They’ll Never Know It’s Healthy!”
“What a horrible idea,” I said sadly. “To never know what’s healthy.”
There was a collective sigh in the room. They were still with me. “Prepared foods have become a cultural necessity in our busy lives. I’ve read that, compared with the workweek in the 1970s, managers now spend an extra month at their desks each year. Prepared foods are here to stay. But before you spend your hard-earned dollars on foods of convenience, I hope you’ll ask yourself just two questions: Is it truly convenient? And is it truly food?” I exhaled. “And now, I’d be happy to take your questions and comments.”
A voice came immediately from somewhere on my left. “So, what does your advertising say, then?”
I squinted to locate my inquisitor, finding her beneath a head of fabulously curly blonde hair.
“You’re looking at it.” My floundering business couldn’t afford to advertise, but there was no need to admit it. “I prefer to talk to customers face-to-face. You can even come and watch me cook the food if you want to. Thursday nights, right here in Brooklyn. Bring a hairnet. No nibbling allowed.”
It was easy enough to laugh off the question, but she’d put her finger on one of my biggest problems. “It’s hard for me,” I admitted, “to picture a glossy ad campaign for Julia’s Child. My foods are all about having a short and recognizable ingredient list. So it’s difficult to imagine where I’d put the exclamation marks, right? Because ‘fresh broccoli!’ is never new and improved. It’s never reformulated.”
“Ahem,” interjected the voice from the left.
I nodded toward her.
“If you’re so disgusted with the processed food business, then why would you start one?”
At that moment the adrenaline coursing through my veins turned on me, souring my confidence. On the face of it, the question wasn’t a tough one. The canned answer was obvious enough: I started Julia’s Child to feed my dear children. And surely that had once been true. But lately my skills in the kitchen had done nothing but threaten their college fund and keep them sequestered with the sitter.
The audience was waiting for my answer.
“Well,” I began tentatively, “I started Julia’s Child because it turns out that I have a knack for . . . for creating recipes that toddlers will eat. Out on the playground with my son, I’d listen to mothers obsess about kids who would eat only plain pasta. They didn’t believe me when I told them that Jasper ate chili or lentil salad. Sometimes I’d offer it to their kids. ‘Ari will never try that,’ they’d say. And then Ari would scarf it down too. And in the grocery stores . . . I didn’t like what I found.” That was an understatement. Some of the foods
marketed to children were so abominable that I could scarcely believe they were legal.
Those were heady days, at the beginning, when I was filled with optimism. It seemed like the market was just waiting for me. The idea for Julia’s Child had honestly begun as a mission of love. But reluctant grocers, five-hundred-page health department manuals, and expensive packaging had quickly intervened.
Forgetting that I held a microphone, I sighed, which made a sound like a hurricane. This I followed with another of my uncomfortable silences. Standing there in the church basement, it seemed impossible to answer the question without spilling my innermost conflicts to the audience.
“I’m just . . . a girl with an idea,” I said finally. “The idea that kids’ food should be healthy, tasty, and natural. If you read the list of ingredients on one of my packages, you’ll see organic whole grains, vegetables, and fruits. That’s all. No binders or fillers, but also no tricks. And no hype. But I really had no idea what I’d be up against. I had no idea that ‘pure and simple’ was the hardest thing in the world to sell.”
My throat seemed to be closing up. “Thank you very much,” I croaked. “It’s been such a pleasure to talk to all of you today.”
And then I heard something that we’re all secretly hoping to hear at some moment in our lives. It started slowly in the back and then swelled to a roar. I heard applause.
Chapter 2
I’d always suspected that every mother on the planet had a special well of angst in her heart just for nutrition. Sure enough, after I set down the microphone, their mealtime obsessions bubbled out.
“I have a question for you,” one woman had said, touching my elbow as I drained my chai.
I turned to face her. She wore a fashionably blousy white tunic and bright green sunglasses. A cute toddler wearing matching shades was perched on her hip.
“Shoot,” I invited.
“I always cook a balanced dinner, but then my daughter eats only the rice. Maybe she’ll eat one bite of the meat. That’s when I feel like running to the freezer for some chicken fingers, you know? Because rice . . . It’s just not dinner.”
“I hear you,” I said. “If you really need her to have a little variety, you could try my rice dish. It’s just a little more nutritious than the plain white stuff. It’s called Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day Rice and Lentil Salad.”
She laughed. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a stepping-stone to more adventurous things. It has rice, which makes the dish look safe and familiar. But it also has a few lentils, for protein, and carrots minced down to the size of the rice. I flavor it with a hint of citrus.”
“I’ll try it!” she said.
“But then,” I cautioned her, “if she eats it and ignores the other food on the table, don’t panic. Just enjoy the meat yourself, or the other vegetables, and smile. How old is your daughter?”
“She turns two next month.”
“Ah,” I said. “Don’t sweat it. She imitates everything else you do, right?”
She laughed, tossing her hair around. “Yes! She wants my sunglasses. She wants my lip gloss. She wants my keys.”
“She’ll want your food, eventually. And rice won’t kill her. My pediatrician says that’s what they eat at that age—carbs. Toddlers usually get plenty of protein from milk. Just serve real food, and she’ll learn to eat it. Hang in there!”
The mommy exhaled dramatically, as if I’d lifted the weight of the world off her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said.
I found myself dispensing advice faster than “Dear Abby.”
“If pasta is her thing, you could try my couscous—it has minced yellow squash and shallots for flavor . . .
“It sounds like he doesn’t like the texture of vegetables. It might not be the flavor that’s putting him off. Have you tried serving them raw? Some children take to raw vegetables, even things you’d never eat uncooked. Or you could try my It’s Not Easy Being Green Beans. They’re sautéed but still crunchy.”
The last question was from Ms. Nadja Aranjo herself. “I’m just beside myself,” she sang, shaking her pendulous earrings, “because River has decided he doesn’t want to drink milk anymore. All that calcium and protein . . . I don’t know what to do.”
I nodded seriously. “I think a lot of kids go off milk for awhile. It’s tempting to offer to dump chocolate into it, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” she shrieked. “But I don’t want to go there. He doesn’t eat yogurt either. What else is there?”
“How about mac and cheese?” I asked. “Will he eat that?”
“Yes.” She was tentative. “But I just don’t know how much actual cheese is in there.” We both looked down at River, who was attempting to scale her leg like a tree. His T-shirt read “I do all my own stunts.”
I laid a hand on her arm. “I’ve got the perfect recipe for you. It’s for high-protein macaroni and cheese. It actually solves two problems at once because it’s a snap to make. Five minutes of prep time and tons of milk and cheese in it. I’ll e-mail it to you tomorrow.”
“Really?” she squealed. “I would so appreciate that, Julia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She grabbed me for another one of her bracing hugs.
By the time my feet hit the streets of Brooklyn again, it was five thirty and I was still jumpy with adrenaline. The ring of my phone startled me, and then a glance at the caller sent my heart skittering with fear. “Hello, Marta!”
“Buenas tardes, chica.” Marta had been trying to teach me Spanish.
“Buenas tardes.” But was it? For at least an hour I’d managed to forget Marta’s dire errand, checking our freezers.
“Todo sigue congelada,” Marta said.
“What? Todo . . .” I swallowed. “All is lost?”
“No, chica,” Marta laughed. “I said ‘everything is still frozen!’ When I got there, the temp on the thermometer read thirty degrees. I ripped open ten packages—five from each freezer. But there were no signs of defrosting.”
“Oh, Marta, are you sure? Were the peas still loose?” These are the things that the brain trust at Julia’s Child thinks about all day. Vegetables that have been flash-frozen properly stay loose and pebbly inside the package. Peas that have defrosted and refrozen will clump together like a rock.
“The peas were definitely still loose,” she said. “Shakin’ better than a nice pair of maracas.”
“I’m so relieved.”
“Me too. Night, chica.”
Now I was finally headed home to Manhattan. Though I wouldn’t get there before six fifteen, my steps toward the subway had a new spring in them. Now I knew that the asylum for the food obsessed was larger than my office. It was as least as large as an entire Brooklyn neighborhood.
Brooklyn provided proof that not every part of the country had been paved into a homogeneous mall. I ducked into a tiny store on Seventh Avenue with a promising name—Russo’s Old World Mozzarella. Even I—who made things from scratch that others bought at the store—didn’t make my own cheese. At least not that often.
A bell hanging from the door jingled as I walked in. The air was tinged with the scent of spicy salami, and big sides of pro-sciutti hung from the ceiling. A man in a white apron stood behind the counter. “Hello there,” he called out. “Can I help ya?”
“Hi! You have fresh mozzarella?”
“I make it every day,” he said. “Salted or unsalted?”
“Salted, please.” I steered around a pyramid of imported olive oil tins. “And one of these,” I added, grabbing a crusty baguette from a local bakery out of a basket.
“That will be eight dollars,” he said. It was a bargain, I thought, for two foods made just hours before, right here in this neighborhood. Priceless, really.
“Have a good ’un!” he said, handing me my change.
“You too,” I said over my shoulder, running now for the F train. As the subway doors slid closed, I hatched my dinner plan. I would heat up the rotisserie chicken I’d bought that morn
ing at Whole Foods. To go with it, I’d throw together a quick Caprese salad of tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.
Pushing open the door to our building, I gave a nod to the so-called doorman lounging in the chair behind the desk. I pictured my hungry family five floors up, milling about the apartment wondering where I’d gone. The last obstacle between me and a hastily prepared family meal was a trip up my building’s plodding elevator.
As if summoned by my darkest insecurities, the door flew open again behind me to reveal the slender rear end of our neighbor Emily, pulling her double jogging stroller into the lobby.
As if his chair had received a high-voltage shock, the doorman leaped up to hold the door wide open. “Good evening, Mrs. Nord-sen,” he said.
“Evening, Mario,” came Emily’s aristocratic drawl. “Hello, Julia.”
“Hi,” I managed, peering at the elevator for signs of life. I turned to face my neighbor. “Hi, Sadie,” I said to her one-year-old daughter, occupying one side of the enormous lime green carriage.
“We were just out for a jog, weren’t we, Sadie?” Emily crooned. “The marathon is still five weeks away, so we only did twelve.”
“Twelve . . . miles?” A quick comparison between Emily and myself furthered my discomfort. It wasn’t obvious which of us had just run a half marathon. My strange mission to Brooklyn had left me rumpled and sweat stained, whereas Emily’s stylish running outfit was pristine, her blond ponytail sleek. The only telltale sign of exertion was a towel—the same citrus shade as her stroller—draped around her neck.
“It always puts Sadie to sleep. If Wylie has trouble going down for a nap, you should try it. Oh—but I suppose you’re at work! How’s the food business?”
I gritted my teeth. “Great. I’m, um, working on a new product. With chickpeas, eggplant, and figs. And a kiss of ginger. It’s all organic,” I prattled on. “And flash frozen for optimal nutrition.” Mercifully, the old elevator car finally appeared through the window of the antique door.
Julia's Child (9781101559741) Page 2
