Julia's Child (9781101559741) (2 page)

In spite of my grim mood, I smiled. A friendly audience was the reason I'd come to Park Slope. Although I hadn't managed to sell any of my products to the big Manhattan stores, the little Brooklyn shops I'd approached had been more receptive.

And of all the Brooklyn neighborhoods, Park Slope is known as the most left-leaning, granola-eating, tree-hugging one. It's populated by mothers who nurse topless everywhere and grind their own millet at the food co-op.

In Park Slope, even the playdough is whole grain.

Steeled by the possibility of a receptive audience, I finally descended the short flight of stairs into a many-windowed room. A frizzy-haired woman sat just inside the doorway, behind a folding table. She had a coffee can and a little sign: “Suggested contribution is $3.”

I approached her. “I'm, um, Julia Bailey.” She wore a black crinkle skirt, enormous beaded jewelry, and an infant in a sling.

“Julia!” she said, jumping to her feet. “I'm Nadja. We're so happy you could come today!”

“Thank you. The pleasure is all mine.” I held out a hand, but she leaned across the table and grabbed my shoulders in a tight embrace. I reciprocated carefully, mindful of the little person strapped to her chest.

“Listen,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “My two-year-old
loves
your Apple and Cheddar Muffets! I bought out Luigi's on Fifth. Will there be any more soon?”

I sucked in my breath with the pleasure that an actress must feel the first time she's recognized on the street. “Of
course
there will be! We deliver to Luigi's on Friday. The day after tomorrow.”

“Terrific!” she exclaimed. “River will be so happy. Won't you, River?” She beamed at someone on the floor behind her.

I peered over the table to see a little boy with long curly hair busily yanking on the wheels of a toy truck. He ignored us.

“So this is . . . the group?” I asked carefully. There was still a chance that the hundred or so people in the room were there for something else.

“Of course!” My hostess smiled.

“Okay,” I said, attempting to swallow my fear. “Where would you like me?”

“I set up the computer over
there
.” She indicated a podium and a screen against one wall. “When you're ready, give me a wave, and I'll introduce you.”

“Perfect,” I said with more nonchalance than I felt.

Aiming for the front of the room, I stepped carefully between the sociable clusters. Coffee and cookies were spread out on a table near the podium. Hoping to stave off nervous dry mouth, I stopped for a drink. One urn was labeled “Fair-Trade, Shade-Grown, Locally Roasted Organic Coffee” and another contained “All-Natural Decaf.” I poured myself a chai.

A precociously tall preschool girl stood on tiptoes, her fingers just brushing the edge of the carefully labeled cookie stand (“Organic! Nut Free! Seed Free!”). There were crumbs on her pinafore. “What's the magic word?” she asked.

The toddler beside her had cheeks so round that when he smiled up at her, his eyes nearly disappeared. “Pease!” he chimed. The hand he extended toward his sister had the same pads of baby fat as Wylie, my own toddler. It was all I could do not to pluck him up and give him a squeeze.

My little burst of longing reminded me that if it weren't for Julia's Child, I would be having a quiet afternoon at home, curled up with my two boys in our own undersize living room. My eyes flicked again toward the door, measuring the distance to the only escape route.

I took a deep breath. It was just the stage fright talking.

I made my way over to the podium and booted up the presentation I'd brought. “Chickens Don't Have Fingers,” my title slide read. “Whole Foods for the Whole Family.” Marta had found a graphic of a chicken wearing gloves. A day ago I'd found it funny. But now the sight of it made me queasy.

Ms. Aranjo—Nadja—came bounding over, her jewelry and her infant bouncing against her. She checked her watch. “It's four o'clock on the nose,” she said. “Shall we?”

I nodded, trying not to tremble.

She grabbed a little microphone off the podium and flicked it on. “Welcome, parents!” she said brightly. “First off, a couple of housekeeping notes. There will be a chicken pox party at Norah Jorgensen's home tomorrow afternoon. Her infected son, Franz, will be happy to play with your unvaccinated children ages three and above from two until four. And next week at this time, we'll be hearing from Kira at Cobble Hill Midwifery on the topic of Saying No to Circumcision.”

“And now I'd like to turn our attention to today's guest. Ms. Julia Bailey is someone who tackles the age-old question of ‘what's for dinner?' on a professional scale. Her children's foods, labeled Julia's Child
,
are for sale in our very own neighborhood. But don't go looking for the Apple and Cheddar Muffets at Luigi's because River has eaten them all! Heh heh. Please welcome Ms. Julia Bailey to the Slope!”

A small amount of polite applause could be heard over the toddlers' din. Nadja handed me the microphone, and I was on.

“Uh, thank you, Nadja,” I heard myself say. Thank you indeed! She'd just promoted my product so warmly and well that I questioned whether I had anything satisfactory to add. I hadn't faced an audience since my last dance recital in the seventh grade. And as mortifying as I'd found it then to prance around in spandex, at least I hadn't been expected to say anything intelligent.

The microphone felt slippery in my hand. I couldn't remember how I'd planned to begin my remarks.

A couple of yards in front of me, a toddler began to shriek. His mother reached into her diaper bag. Her hand emerged a moment later with a baggie full of green grapes, each presliced against the risk of choking. She handed him half a grape, and an instant later the child plunged his hand into his mouth and was quiet.

I raised the microphone.

“I have always found extreme pleasure in watching my own children eat,” I began. “It starts right at the very beginning. You bring home this new baby, this loud little stranger, and for those first few weeks you have only one job. When the baby is nursing happily or attacking his bottle—as long as he's sucking down calories—everything is right with the world. Good mom! You win!”

I scanned the audience for signs of agreement. But it was wiggly and noisy out there. A moist spot formed between my shoulder blades. It seemed impossible to compete with all the babies and toddlers in the room for their mothers' attention.

Having no alternative, I soldiered on. “We are rewarded for our loving attention when the little screamers begin to get fat. There's nothing sweeter than finding several chins hiding under the baby bonnet or—my favorite—knees that resemble the folds on a shar-pei puppy.”

A woman sitting on a blanket in front of me chuckled, and I felt immediate gratitude. At least someone could hear me.

“The joy continues into toddlerhood. One-year-olds are hungry creatures, and now they can eat nearly anything, as long as you cut it small enough. I actually believe that we're
wired
to feel pleasure and accomplishment when they do. Endorphins must be released when you watch those chubby hands shovel in the food. You could actually hook up sensors to a mother's brain and then show her a video of her child eating broccoli and giggling. Her synapses would start firing like she'd just won the lottery. I guarantee it.

“But then your toddler turns two. Now that the little darling has a full set of teeth and can chew anything at all, suddenly he won't. At two the appetite slows down. Suddenly, every mom has a picky eater on her hands, a child who will eat only on alternate Tuesdays and only foods that are beige.”

At this there was a little swell of laughter. And with it I felt something akin to the acceleration of an engine on the open road. Because it wasn't just the size of the crowd that scared me but the possibility that they wouldn't understand why I spend much of my week in a closet-size office, trying to placate the picky eaters of America. Even on days when my business didn't hover near the brink of collapse, I sometimes worried that I was the only inmate in the asylum.

I smiled at the crowd. “So now Mom gets edgy. Toddlerhood can feel like a personal failure. I'm sure you all know what happens next.” I made my voice shrill. “ ‘Two more bites of chicken, Maddox! Then you can have the cookie!' ”

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.

 

 

“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.