JULIA'S CHILD

Entrepreneur mom struggles to balance the demands of her growing business with the needs of her young family.

Making healthy frozen organic food for finicky toddlers, Julia’s Child fills a niche that its founder, Julia Bailey, truly believes should be filled. A nutrition-obsessed former Wall-Streeter with two little boys, she runs her tiny operation out of a shared kitchen in Brooklyn with one full-time employee, and a slightly sketchy storage arrangement with a Mr. Pastucci and his Sons of Sicily Social Club. She also owns a small organic “farm” in Vermont where she hopes to source her own ingredients—someday. Counting on the support of her laid-back husband Luke, and their sweet-natured Scottish nanny, Bonnie, she is able to make her life work, barely. That all changes after an appearance on a morning talk show gives Julia and her signature savory baked “muffets” all the visibility they can handle. Soon after, Whole Foods comes-a-calling with a trial offer, forcing Julia and her devoted assistant Marta (a single mother fresh off welfare) into a punishing schedule. Add to that a make-or-break trade show, a website to be built on the fly and a nasty neighbor mom who wants to ban Julia’s kids from their apartment building’s playroom, and it is clear something has to give. Enter GPG, a global food conglomerate interested in purchasing Julia’s company. What they offer seems too good to be true. So is it? And what will she have to give up in return? Peppered with real recipes and the kind of convincing details expected from a food writer, Pinneo’s debut novel uses a pleasantly frenetic pace to move along a fairly vanilla story line. 

Foodie take on I Don’t Know How She Does It.