Annabel Karmel’s pretty hazel eyes flash with indignation as she leans forward
on her sumptuous creamy sofa. Within minutes of my arrival at her
gilt-and-marble home in St John’s Wood, northwest London, replete with
Filipino maid, classical statues and oil paintings, the children’s cookery
author is expressing her deep concern about convenience food.
“Children are indoctrinated into eating processed meals. I don’t believe it
has to be like that. Everywhere kids go, they only get safe food; on a ‘play
date’ a mother will reach for chicken nuggets rather than making a stir-fry
or a satay chicken. I think it’s such a shame. I want to help mums, to
spread the knowledge of how to cook healthily for your child to everyone.”
Since publishing her first book, The Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner (Ebury),
16 years ago, Karmel has become something of an expert on healthy eating for
kids. The book became an instant classic, selling more than two million
copies, and its updated version is still No 5 in the Bookseller Top 20. She
has since written 14 books on how to feed children, she appears regularly on
Richard & Judy and has created product ranges for Sainsbury’s, Boots
and Mothercare. She also has a hugely popular website (annabelkarmel.co.uk)
where mothers can swap advice about what to feed their fussy kids. Last year
she was appointed an MBE which, she says, took her by surprise: “It’s all
about making a difference in people’s lives, which is all I want to do.”
Karmel has met me to discuss her latest offering, The Fussy Eaters’ Recipe Book.
It contains more than 120 recipes to help parents encourage their one to
four-year-olds to eat sensible yet delicious food. She suggests ways of
sneaking vegetables into quesadillas (toasted tortillas) and offers healthy
variations of fast food classics such as chicken nuggets and burgers. What
rapidly becomes clear is that her vision for healthy eating is deeply
personal and emotional. Her first child died from a viral infection and her
second child was a fussy eater. It inspired her to write, and it’s been a
personal crusade since. Now in her forties, Karmel looks younger; blonde,
petite and immaculately turned out in tight white jeans and a red top. She
appears to be the epitome of glamorous Earth mother, never happier than when
she’s in her domestic haven – her gleaming kitchen – experimenting with new
recipes.
Yet the reality is rather different. She is as much an entrepreneur as a
foodie goddess, as interested in extending her brand as helping fussy kids.
She hopes to win the hearts and minds of all those mothers who, after a busy
day in the office, turn to ready meals and not a recipe for teriyaki chicken
skewers or mini fish pies with smiley faces on them. It is these time-poor
mums that Karmel is determined to reach.
Her books brim with practical tips. “Think about timing,” she tells me. “When
a child comes home from school he or she is hungry. Be prepared; have your
carrots cut up in sticks. Have a wrap handy, otherwise they’ll go for crisps
and biscuits.” Mums should consider appearance – “Make small ramekins of
shepherd’s pie rather than a big dollop on a plate” – and novelty: “Give
them chopsticks so they have fun with noodles.”
“Help” is a word that crops up frequently in our conversation; her desire to
“help mums help their children” and to “solve their problems”. And there are
quite a few references to brand strategy; “growing my business”, “licensing
deals” and “reaching a wider marketplace”. Yet it is hard to doubt her
personal passion.
Karmel used to be a harpist who trained at the Royal College of Music in
London. Before that she was went to the prestigious St Paul’s Girls’ School.
She worked hard at music, although it was never a vocation. “It was all I
really knew. I think my mother chose what I wanted to do and I didn’t really
have much choice.” Yet from a young age Karmel loved cooking, so much so
that her mother bought her a cooker when she was 11.
In her early twenties, she met her husband Simon, an oil broker, and settled
down to start a family. She continued as a musician but gave it up in when
her first child, Natasha, died at 13 weeks. “My whole life changed. It was
very hard to come to terms with and hard to carry on playing music. It all
seemed terribly superficial. I knew I wanted to do something with children,
but I didn’t know what.”
When her son Nicholas, now 18, was born a year later, he was a fussy eater.
“That was a cata-lyst to my career. I was running a play group at the time
and I’d ask mothers questions such as: ‘Does your child have a problem
eating? Because mine won’t touch this or that.’ I began making recipes for
Nicholas; things such as apple and chicken balls to get him to eat chicken.
The play group began to ask for more ideas and girlfriends said that I
should write a book.”
So creating children’s food was initially rooted in maternal anxiety; a desire
to protect herself and her son. “I always felt very vulnerable being a
mother who lost a child. I wanted him to have a reserve so, if anything
happened, he could fight it.” Karmel, who went on to have two more children,
Lara, 17, and Scarlett, 15, also feels that writing gave her loss meaning.
“It was giving something; getting something good out of what happened.
Otherwise why did it happen? Why me? Why her? I’d never have written it if I
hadn’t had that experience.”
At the time, she says, there was no other book for mothers wanting to cook
healthy yet tasty food for their babies and, initially, it was difficult to
find a publisher. When it was finally published, it was an almost overnight
success.
“It was published in 20 countries and within three months the entire print run
sold out,” she tells me proudly.
Karmel is also in a perfect position to empa-thise with mothers who worry
about their children’s eating habits. And worry they do; her website forum
is full of them.
Could it be, I suggest, that these children aren’t “fussy”, just in a normal
phase of early childhood when they reject and pick at whatever is offered to
them? And that rather than cook up ever more ingenious and irresistible
dishes, not worrying and accepting their habits could be a lot less taxing
and stressful – if a lot less profitable for women such as Karmel? “But
there are things we can do,” she insists, rather evading the issue. “Let
them be hungry sometimes; a hungry child is a less fussy child.”
Karmel’s desire to offer her “tried and tested” advice to mothers is
well-intentioned, but she can come across as a little smug and patronising.
You can’t help thinking that she feels we could all do so much better if we
simply followed her example.
She asks me if I have any of her books. I don’t, I tell her. “Oh dear, poor
deprived mummy,” she smiles, and I can’t help thinking that she probably
means it. “Then have this one,” she says, sweeping a copy up from the coffee
table and signing the front page with a flourish.
As we flip through it, she points out a tasty salad dressing: fresh ginger
root, chopped celery, chopped onion, rice wine vinegar, and so it goes o. I
wonder when I’d find time to source all the ingredients, let alone make it.
Karmel has no such doubts and nor, she feels, should I. “Even if mothers are
not that interested, they can spend 10 or 15 minutes in a kitchen and bring
out a brilliant meal. They’re going to get so much feedback; a kind of
good-mum feeling that their child and their husband are eating their food.
It’s something they can’t get by putting food in a microwave.”
I wonder if this is a good time to confess that I feed both my children
Coco-Pops for breakfast. Is that really bad, I ask sheepishly, already
knowing the answer. “Hmm. I’d rather they ate that than nothing.
At least they’re getting milk.” Of course, I should be rustling up her
“delicious homemade granola” with 14 ingredients, including pumpkin seeds
and wheatgerm. Fine for those more acquainted with destination shopping at
Fresh’n’Wild than panic-buying in their Tesco freezer section. Which brings
us to the sensitive issue of audience. Her books may sell well, but she does
divide mothers and that dividing line, ultimately, depends on whether or not
you work full-time.
‘My books appeal to everybody,’ she insists I spent a few wistful evenings
leafing through her latest recipes and even announced to my husband that I
was definitely going to get round to cooking her salmon on a stick with
stir-fried noodles, but, somehow, I still haven’t. Nor will I ever find time
in the day to e-mail other mothers on her website about my latest anxieties,
if I had any. Working mothers have less time to worry about their children’s
picky habits, let alone to cater for them. Nor do they embrace Karmel’s
rather self-righteous vision of domestic motherhood, which can make working
mums feel undermined, so no doubt she’ll find it hard to win them over.
Yet Karmel gets extremely upset, as she did during our interview, when
magazines accuse her of appealing only to rich people, or more specifically,
full-time yummy mummies with Agas and endless time to carve crocodiles from
cucumbers. “My books aren’t sold to an elite group; they appeal to
everybody,” she insists.
Now she has her sights on an even bigger market share – America – where her
books have been published recently. Perhaps she enjoys the challenge of
converting more lost souls. “Whatever we have, they have much worse; to see
children that are so fat, I feel so sorry for them, these children waddling
along. They’ve got to have help.”
Back here, meanwhile, she is busy focusing on mothers like me who work and
have slipped through her net. She won’t let us escape that easily. “I
realise that not everyone is going to cook from scratch so I have to reach a
wider market-place.” But how? Er, ready-cooked meals.
“To really grow my business I need to license deals through companies,” she
says. “I’ve found food that you can make in a factory that tastes like
home-cooked food. With the range I’ve done recently, I don’t think you could
tell the difference. I’m really impressed. It’s frozen, so there are no
preservatives.”
Amazingly, she has no problem squaring this with her heartfelt conviction that
preparing your own meals is infinitely better than buying ready-made. Desn’t
it worry you that you are entering the very market you’re so against? I ask.
She shakes her head. “I think you have to understand that some parents will
not cook for their child and they want a ready-meal that’s good quality. And
even those who cook for their children each evening may want a night off.”
The Fussy Eaters’ Recipe Book (Ebury, £14.99) is available from Times
BooksFirst for £13.49, p&p free: 0870 1608080, or log on to
timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy
