Squeeze Parkay
Do you remember Squeeze Parkay? What was in that bottle?? It was yellow, viscose, tasted “buttery” (in a chemical way) and salty - in short I guess it was margarine, designed so that one could squeeze their “butter” out of a bottle. Brilliant right?? I loved this stuff, I thought it was both fun to use and delicious. My fondest memory was artfully squeezing either my initials or a smiley face onto EACH pancake. Now, thinking of the ingredients needed to make that concoction squeeze out of a bottle, even after refrigeration, makes my toes curl. I am pretty sure it was loaded with trans fat, loads of yellow number 5 food dye and salt. Seriously, how did we make it alive out of the 70s and 80s??
Well one day, not only was the Squeeze Parkay gone, I was also served some hippie version of a pancake. It was made with whole wheat flour, oats and probably bran. YUCK. I was very upset about this turn of events and wanted to know where my “normal” pancakes were and what was I supposed to do with this hard as wood butter? This was my first introduction to Jane Brody. I hated her. She was responsible for those wretched pancakes, oatmeal with seeds and nuts and roman meal french toast. All of a sudden, my mother was making food that was healthy and full of whole wheat. My mom was (and still is) a great cook, but this was just awful, I didn’t want to eat any of it. Then slowly, slowly, my tastebuds began to change and I started enjoying breakfast foods again. Well, maybe not the pancakes.
As a mom, I did the exact same thing to my kids, except we went in a plant-based direction instead. I would bribe them with brownie waffles, steel cut oats with wild blueberries and walnuts, dinners with all veggies and no meat or cheese. The best was when I made monster cookies and replaced half of the butter with avocado. I asked everyone what they thought the secret ingredient was, no one got it right. Once I realized I was replicating my mother’s cooking experience, I can’t tell you how upset I was that I had gone full circle. I was turning into my mother! Ahhhhhhh!
Fast forward many years and one day I am reading a health column in the NY Times and I noticed the author was Jane Brody! I couldn’t believe it! Here she was again, haunting me now. I think I had been reading her column for years and just not noticed the author. I immediately wanted to hate her (I still had a grudge) but it turns out, she is a great writer and has very interesting things to say! So now I seek out her articles because I know it will have some great nugget of information that I can use in my life. I have finally forgiven her for disrupting my childhood breakfasts and now want to find her oatmeal recipe.
Here are a few Jane Brody articles I picked out:
We Could All Use a Health Coach (this one is a little biased)
Even Benefits Don’t Tempt Us to Vegetables (And the follow up: Learning to Love Veggies)
An author who provides interesting insights and nudges the reader in a healthier direction which is just how I like my reading. For more Jane Brody, check out her other columns. Happy reading.