I usually just ignore these but tonight I was bored.

Actual pitch I just got:

Hi Jenny,

Would you be interested in recipes from baby food creators on how to include your child in their first holiday meal?

My return email:

Weirdly enough, we’ve actually been feeding holiday meals to our child for the last eight years, but I will pass this on to any of my friends who ritually starve their children during Christmas.

So far, no response.

 

250 thoughts on “I usually just ignore these but tonight I was bored.

Read comments below or add one.

  1. You had a more charitable interpretation than I, who assumed they were giving out recipes in which the child was an *ingredient*.

  2. I fear you misunderstood the pitch. Sounds to me like they want to cook your daughter and feed her to babies, the sick bastards. This calls for a more aggressive response.

  3. Um…. I read that as including your child… as in adding them to the ingredients during their first holiday. You know… get them while they are fresh.

  4. I also read it as like cutting off a baby’s hand to feed to them during holidays. >.>

  5. Or… are they asking if you’d be interested in recipes on how to cook children for their first holiday? Human veal might be something special to wow your guests.

    (Yes, I am fully aware I’m going to Special Hell.)

  6. Hahaha.

    Not everyone has the kind of effervescent, appropriately nourished childhood that you have been able to provide for Hailey. And if they don’t, it’s certainly for want of inventive babyfood ideas.

    Wait, isn’t baby food pretty much mashed potatoes and Jello? Christmas dinner is already fully 50% baby food.

  7. I love it! Are you a grammar nazi (no political or racial implications intended)? I am at times, but then I also tend to write how I speak so I am sure my grammar is all over the place.

    I guess when you are famous you get pitched all kinds of crazy stuff. You could probably come up with a huge post of just these kinds of offers that would make everyone laugh!

  8. I’m more concerned about the “their” as in, are they planning to cook your child to make the baby food creators’ first holiday meal? Also, who are baby food creators? Is that really a job? And it kind of bothers me that they want to eat your child.

  9. You rock!

    My response was: Normally, I season and roast my babies. How do you prepare yours?

  10. It seems that they’ve been reading “A Modest Proposal…” Well read, though creepy baby food manufacturers. I wonder where they get their baby food from. Anybody reminded of the soap in Fight Club?

  11. That’s an end-product of what Terry Pratchett terms as “cackling.” Gingerbread houses… Stuffing children in ovens…

    You know. HOLIDAY cheer! ;o)

  12. “Include your child in their first holiday meal” sounds like a “Modest Proposal”-type thing. “NEW: TENDER BABY RECIPES! BABY WITH CRANBERRY GLAZE!”

  13. Yeah, they def wanna include your child so as to be eaten! Or pushed around on a plate or passed over on the buffet.

  14. …why do baby food creators want to have other people’s children for their first holiday meal?

    Isn’t “child” just an informal weekday snack for the busy working family?

  15. For chrissakes. Just put whatever you made into a blender. They won’t know the difference. Recipes. Bah.

  16. It was nice of them to offer to make sure that you were feeding your kid. It’s even nicer that, you know, you were feeding your kid.

  17. AND, I just read that as ‘feeding your holiday weasels…”

    I’ve been following this site for too delightfully long! Keep on keeping on, Jenny!

  18. Does sound like a modest proposal. The baby should probably be the centerpiece though, so as to feel properly included.

  19. If I didn’t know any better I’d think they were advocating cannibalizing your baby this Christmas… Isn’t that what they meant by including them in your holiday meals?

  20. Huh. I read that as including your child in the meal…as an ingredient. Mushed up food already is kinda gross, and the idea of mushed up human? Even grosser. And also disturbing.

  21. I wish I had your quick wit today when someone told me my baby seemed hungry… and asked was he getting enough??? Nope, he was a bad baby and I said, “that’s it, no food for you today!” idiots….

  22. Yep, I’m in the “baby as Christmas Roast Beast” crowd. That’s some baaaaad sentence structure right there. Or scary. One of the two.

  23. I would love to meet the people that create recipes that use children as ingredients.

    On second thought, maybe not.

  24. Hmmm.

    I thought they were asking if you’d like them to eat your child.

    Maybe I _do_ need to get my glasses checked.

  25. It says something about me that I am overjoyed to learn that I’m not the only person that interpreted this as someone cooking and eating children.

  26. Of course, I am the same person who once referred to KFC as “Kentucky Fried Children” — WHILE PARKED IN FRONT OF IT LOOKING AT THE SIGN.

    My teen still brings that up on occasion.

  27. um. yeah. add me to the couch of they want you to cook WITH your child as an ingredient, not FOR your child.

  28. To me, that pitch read like you were going to get instructions for how to serve your baby, suckling pig style, at christmas dinner.

  29. I just had this horrible flashback to an image from “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover”…*shudder* (That’s two hours of my life I’ll NEVER get back.) Please don’t cook or starve your child this holiday season.

  30. You really include your child? We take ours to the kennel. Sure, it costs a lot (holiday rates) but the meal is much more relaxing. Please forward me their information as I’m sure our children would prefer to stay home this Christmas. Thank you.

  31. I love when companies don’t do their homework before pitching something, and then send it to you. It’s the gift that keeps us laughing.

  32. Once again, I’m doing it all wrong. But what a pitch. Not. I suspect they employ lazy, unpaid interns destined to ruin their business model. And I kind of got a cannibalism vibe from that correspondence. Is that just me?

  33. I like how pretty much ALL of us read it as “cannibalism for the Holidays” instead of starving the child.

    I think that says something pretty fundamental about us — that we’re freaking fantastic. 😀

  34. At first I totally thought it was a pitch to use your own child in the recipes. Now I’m really going to start questioning people who say their kids are “visiting” relatives for the holidays.

  35. If only I had known I could include my babies in my holiday meals 30 years ago. I’d have much more money in my retirement account by now. I wouldn’t have had to pay for 2 college educations!! (Which I’m STILL paying for).

  36. HA! Talk about needing to do more research…also better wording because it definitely sounds like they want to cook your kid. I get wanting to make the magic of Christmas and bringing childhood fairytales to life but Hansel and Gretel needs to stay in between the pages. Just saying……

  37. The way I initially read that sentence, I thought the pitch was asking if you wanted recipes from baby food creators on how to include your child in the BABY FOOD CREATORS’ first holiday meal. Like the baby food creators have been so busy making baby food their whole lives that they have never had time off for a holiday meal until now.

    Which is why they’ve gone round the bend and think it’s not weird to ask you if you’d like to swap recipes from the Children-Cooking cookbook (available in the store where the witch from Hansel and Gretel shops).

  38. Thank you, people, for making me feel less bad for thinking that infanticide/cannibalism was being advocated here.

    Also? For finding it freaking *hilarious*. I feel less alone because of all of you sick bastards.

  39. Wait…what? “recipes from baby food creators on how to include your child in their first holiday meal?”. Okay, Is it just me, or does it sound like they want you to eat your child?

  40. I too read it as instructions for including the child as an ingredient. Are you sure the email wasn’t from a descendant of Jonathan Swift?

  41. That’s so much better than the spam I got today! Commenters want to know if I’m interested in real estate in Turkey, or in getting rid of my man-boobs.

  42. OHHHHH…. I thought they were talking about feeding children… Like… Cannibals or something.

    I should probably stop drinking now…

    Hugs!

    Valerie

  43. Actually, I read that as the baby food creators wished to eat your child in THEIR holiday meal, which I found even more disturbing.

  44. I probably would have mentioned that I’m not really a fan of eating children, and that I’d especially be against making them part of Christmas dinner.

  45. Oh, HELL no! Keep your food processors away from Hailey!
    I, on the other hand, have teenagers who would make delicious Soylent Green Beans for the holidays.

    Sullen and moody, but delicious!

  46. Sounds to me like it was going to be suggestions on how to prepare your child to be a main course or side dish depending on the size of the child.

  47. It sounded to me like they wanted to include the child IN the meal. As in an ingredient? They are baby food CREATORS after all!

  48. So are they going to tell you how to purée your child into baby food? That’s kind of what that email sounds like.

  49. You forgot the signature line

    –signed the witch from Hansel and Gretel

  50. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that sentence actually wants you to cook your child into a meal and then feed it to said child.

    My head hurts trying to imagine that.

  51. I agree with the consensus: I read it as though they wanted to give you recipes for turning babies into a festive main course for a holiday dinner. In case your local Jeffry Dahmer wannabee is coming by for a snack, I guess.

  52. I took it as include your child….as a meal. I don’t see you as the type to eat your young, but then again I don’t really know you. Maybe that is your type. Are you one of THOSE people?!

  53. I love how all of us have been reading your blog for so long that we all just misinterpreted that as suggesting cannibalism. Personally, I was kind of hoping that your response would be somewhere along the lines of “Thanks, but I’d prefer not to eat my child.”

  54. Well, I’m glad to see that I’m hardly alone in reading that as recipes that want you to either make a meal of your kid; or feed parts of your child to the child.

    And yes, it does kind of give “baby food” a whole new meaning…

  55. We just let the kids lick our plates when we’re done. Looks like I’ve been doing this wrong and may need to do some further reading on this subject.

  56. Oddly enough when I read the first statement I IMMEDIATELY thought they were saying something about having the baby and eating him too. Could be my meds are off. Could be lack of sleep. Could be they are really are cannibals.

  57. …or perhaps they’re suggesting you actually cook your child in some sort of sick, twisted, auto-cannibalistic holiday meal ritual. Which is just wrong on pretty much on any level.Like, seriously. My holiday meals often include things like turkey, ham, and a suspicious-sounding dessert called “Sex In a Pan.” But never a child, much less my own.

    These people are sick.

  58. My first thought was, “Well, if I include my child IN the holiday meal, they probably won’t be alive to partake with me. Hmmm. Maybe they don’t really need that foot after all…”

  59. I somehow read this as how to include the baby as part of the meal and I’m all, “baby food is not made of babies!!”

  60. And now I see how many other people read that letter the same way, which means the pitch person needs to learn how to write, and also your followers are a bunch of sickos.

  61. Can you imagine the commercial pitch? “…I love this baby food. It’s all natural and contains more baby than the leading brand…”

  62. “Despite his butterball exterior and plump thighs, my therapist doesn’t think it’s a good idea to cook him. WHY ARE YOU TEMPTING ME??!!”

  63. Yes, I thought they were talking about including the child in the meal as, like, a garnish sauce or as an antipasto on the side…

  64. Don’t be mean. These sound like nice people trying to do a nice thing.

    Also it says “thier” meal, not “your” meal. I know it is not your fault that people commenting here can’t actually read, but you probably knew where this would go. Again, don’t be mean.

  65. I’m with your other crazy readers – I assumed they were talking about cooking up your baby for the holiday meal. Strange our mind went there and not yours. Sign of maturity? Go you!

  66. You know, the way I read it they not only are talking cannibalism, they are wanting you to feed the child to itself!

    “Mommy, I’ll take a leg, please.”

    ~EdT.

  67. I read it that they were offering the child as an ingredient too. Meh, I suppose it is something different. We all used to have turkey legs…all 6 of us….from one turkey. Norfolk is the home of the turkey production for England and inbreeding, so the two work fantastically together at Christmas.

  68. It totally sounds like they want you to eat your child. Or possibly want your child to eat your child. I don’t know which is worse.

  69. Uhm, when I read “include the child in the meal” I thought “baby food” means “food made OF babies” 0o

  70. for the love of pete, this is why we grammar! otherwise strangers are eating our babies!

  71. Ever since the courts ruled a “Dingo” really did take that ladies baby, they have been coming up with new and interesing way to make babies disappear.

    Good on you for calling bullshit to this “baby food creator” schtick. It was just the new Dingo 2.0 version.

  72. Hey, can you forward that info on to me? Last year’s dinner was a little tough. Maybe it’s because I’ve been roasting *adult* relatives. A younger child might be just the ticket to a tender, juicy meal. Thanks.

  73. I should have known I wouldn’t be the only person who read that as “include my child in a nice pot roast?”

  74. I really wish on most days I had your quick wit. Me, I would have just deleted the email, but you made this glorious situation out of it. I am willing to bet more hilarity will ensue from this. Good choice!

  75. Jenny! I can’t believe you missed the opportunity to call them out on their baby eating ways. Way to take the high road. Pfft.

  76. Oh my lord. Feeding a pureed version of my family’s recent holiday dishes might be grounds for a visit from Child and Family Services, e.g. Green bean-Oriental noodle Casserole with Marmalade, Salad Nicoise, Tomato Aspic, Salmon Mousse. Good thing Waffle House is open 24/7/365.

  77. Uhm, should it bother anyone that so many of your readers leaned towards the whole idea that this had something to do with cooking and eating small children? That’s disturbing, very disturbing, on many levels.

  78. I’m with everyone else…I thought it was about cooking your child. How horrible….

  79. Wow. Inviting family over for Christmas dinner suddenly takes a turn for the worst.
    Grandma: “Where’s Johnny? Doesn’t he want some of this delicious meal?”
    Mom: “Oh, he’s here, and I don’t think he’s a fan of this particular dinner.”
    NomNomNom.

  80. Well really, if they want to include children in the holiday meal, can’t they just eat one of their own? I’m sure that if I wanted to eat my child I can create my own recipe. You know, chocolate covered eyeballs, jellied lips, or how about stuffed roasted arm – you could even have it holding the jug of gravy!

  81. Awesome. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who thought it sounded like they want to cook their child for the holiday meal.

  82. Well, at least people actually give a damn about your work and your awesome rep. For every “Katie” appearance, there’s bound to be a few crazies…
    The last pitch I received was from a medical laboratory that wanted me to test some new designer drugs…

  83. Is it weird that I immediately went to a cannibalistic place? “Include your child in their first holiday meal”? Really?

  84. See I read it and would have responded that it sounded sinister like the food was made of babies and you were incorporating your child into the menu for the meal, I would pretend to be outraged and then ask for curiosity sake what a sample child menu would be.

  85. Um, Jenny these people are actually canibals and they are trying to solicit your participation in a old family recipe exchange that is secretly designed to bring you and what is left of your family, into the fold. Cannibles are sneaky that way. All I can say is beware of Spam that comes with a calderon.

  86. I am so glad that I am not alone in that thinking this was about cooking up your babies to make the holiday meal. You really missed an opportunity for a great response. Perhaps next time you should just post the marketing pitches, wait for the responses and pick the winner to send back as your reply.

  87. Hooray for your success at a good sized following of twisted minds! (Mine too). ….also thought it sounded like they meant to cook the baby. However, since it specified “first” holiday meal, it makes me wonder if it would have just been something small included in the meal like a foot or a hand, so they can be included for years to come….I count a maximum of 13 years though, because at 12 years you’d be left with head and torso, so you’ve got one final year to cook the rest of them in, unless you can preserve parts for future years but I don’t think conventional freezers work well for that long a time of storage.

  88. I agree with some of the other comments. I think you completely missed the point of their pitch. Obviously, they were marketers from a weird cult that eats children during their holiday meals. They’ve probably seen pictures of how delicious your daughter looks and thought you might be ready to sell or trade her.

  89. Kind of reminds me of something you’d see on Chopped. “Remember, you must include all of the items in your basket. Your basket includes: celery! persimmons! tarragon! and a newborn baby!”

  90. Oh man, this is perfect for us! Our holiday babies always turn out so tough. I wish you’d pass along more info. We’re particularly interested in brining this year. Mmm, I just love to include babies in our holiday recipes!

  91. When I first read the e-mail they sent you, I thought they were asking you for recipes on how to cook children for Christmas dinner…
    Love your response though!

  92. The comments make me think of my favorite response to the dreaded “Why don’t you have any children?” question. I usually smile at them and say “Well honestly I like children, really I do, but I can’t eat a whole one.” and then walk off.

  93. I know everyone’s already said it, but I’m finally catching up on your blog, and this TOTALLY reads to me like they are wanting to cook your kids. Maybe they read your previous post about kiddie kebobs and thought since you were opposed to such cooking methods, you needed a new recipe? I like them on the rotisserie with a bourbon glaze, but maybe that’s just me…

  94. I think you’re reading it wrong…

    “Would you be interested in recipes from baby food creators on how to include your child in their first holiday meal?”

    The people who make food from babies want to add your kid to the recipe and eat her over the holidays.

    Canibals!

  95. “Would you be interested in recipes from baby food creators on how to include your child in their first holiday meal?”

    So the baby food creators want to cook and eat your child in their first meal for the holidays? And they’re going to give you the recipes to show you how they’ll do it??

    Grammar. It’s important.

  96. Ha, like a lot of other commenters, I totally thought they wanted to cook the baby as a part of the holiday meal. LOL

  97. Love this response! I teach children’s cooking classes and believe that children are people too. They like good food and don’t need “kid” food.

  98. I think you may have missed the point. Pretty sure it is people creating food from babies, and they would like you to learn how to incorporate your baby into a holiday meal.

  99. Are babies the new Fois Gras? We know that we probably shouldn’t eat them because it’s just so horrible, but damn, they’re tasty.

  100. You kill me, Bloggess. Just kill me. I’ve read into past posts and I was glued. Laughing, but glued. You’ve got great wit, and have opened up a WHOLE can of ideas for what I’ll be doing with our shelf elf in the coming weeks.
    Rock on, sister. I’ll be rooting from the sidelines.

    Jason

  101. My husband has been telling my kids for years that he’s raising them for food. I could sure use those recipes now that they have reached the pre-teens!

  102. Baby back ribs?

    And I, too, find it vaguely reassuring that I am not the only one who interpreted that message as referring to recipes CONTAINING children.

  103. You’d think after a while people would stop sending you ridiculous pitches, knowing that you’ll make an appropriately snarky reply and show it to the world. People worry me sometimes.

  104. Like others commented, I read it as recipes for including the child in the recipes… mashed baby? steamed baby toes? baby belly flambe?

  105. You could have expressed great interest in recipes on how to cook your child for holidays meals.

    Hi Jenny,
    “blah blah….recipes from baby food creators on how to include your child in their first holiday meal?”

    Jenny: “I have always wondered about cooking children and serving them for holiday meals. Do tell.”

  106. And if you read it slow, it still reads as though they want to cook your child. If your child mouths off during the holiday, now you know what you can do with a fresh child. Ho! Ho!

  107. Actually, it’s worse than all of you think. They are baby “food creators” (how precocious) and they want to include (read that as cook) your child in their (the baby “food creators”) FIRST holiday meal. This is babies eating babies. It’s one step up from cannibalism. Of course it could just be the first meal of the holiday season, but that’s so last year. . .

  108. I’m guessing that Soylent Pink is made of girl babies and Soylent Blue is made out of the boys?

  109. I read this sentence as – would you like to know how to include your kid as one of the ingredients in your holiday meal?

    As in “stuffed baby quail” but let’s just forget the quail.

  110. looks like I’m not the only one who thought eating your child is bad. You should’ve written back, “Cannibalism is illegal.”

  111. Would you be interested in recipes from baby food creators on how to include your child in their first holiday meal?

    No thanks. I prefer my holiday meal with turkey, not children.

  112. I am absolutely amazed that you didn’t write something about how it’s really unethical to eat children. Or ask them how your child is going to eat the meal if they are part of it.

  113. Am I the only one who thinks you might send them a picture of Wil Wheaton making snickerpoodles? Oops, I mean snickerdoodles. You know – the ones rolled in festive red or green sprinkles.

  114. Dear Jenny, As a suffer of panic disorder it was consoling to read of someones elses angst. Your wit and resilence is admirable. Being a new mother is great material for writing and I’m almost done with “Let’s Pretend It Never Happened” When I get used to my new glasses and can see wtihout feeling like I’m looking through binoculars I will read more of your writing. The picture of little Rambo will forever make me laugh, especially since he has a smile on his little face. You are lucky to have a loving husband. Mine is surely contributing to my mental decline, since all he’s worried about is that I keep my weight down.Oh well. I guess my life epitomizes the saying from the 70’s band YES- If you choose not to make a choice you still have made a choice.’ I feel Hunter Thompson would have been amused by your writing. My 1st husband was Thompsonesque-consume mass quanities of drugs whenever possible-so I have had some good times.~ALOHA~

  115. I think I would prefer to eat my second child. She is the one who drives me to drink…well if I did drink she would drive me to it. Although she is only 3 so she can’t quite drive yet, so perhaps I should rethink this. 😉

  116. Add me to the list of people who thought they were talking about actually cooking your baby. That’s why proper puctuation is so important. It’s the difference between “It’s time to eat chlidren,” and “It’s time to eat, children.”

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