Dear Jackie —
I hope this letter finds you well and recovered from all the New Year’s parties! Our dear Mother just sent me the most dreary letter. You know how she is with the “advice.” She thinks she’s helping but you just end up feeling insulted. For instance, she’s resolved to get me cooking salads for our health, as if we’re starving here in the city. There are restaurants in New York, Mother. We’re not wasting away. She calls Robert my “great, tall new husband”! What — does she think that if I don’t feed him salad he’ll shrink?
She even wants to school me on vitamins as if I’ve never heard of them before. Doesn’t she know that vitamins always were in food and that they’re not something that magically appear just because you know they’re there? She’s such a provincial. I don’t know how Father puts up with her. Or you. Is she cramming salad down your throat too? What a nightmare.
Oh, and get this — she says all I ever cooked at home was fudge, and that I’m a complete amateur. Well of course I am — she wouldn’t let us cook anything else! And if she’s so concerned about my being able to keep us both alive, why didn’t she take the time to teach me before the wedding? Let me answer that — it’s because she’s a control freak! I’m so happy to be out of it at last.
Apart from all that we are doing splendidly. Robert is trying his very best to start a family (wink wink) and I am loving the shops. I’ve even taken up smoking! You must try it — it’s very glamorous. Perhaps they don’t allow it at your school?
Ugh — I’ve just noticed a recipe she’s sent me for that abysmal Oyster Salad she serves up in a lemon jelly ring. I’d rather slit my wrists. And so would Robert. We’d both be lying here in a vast pool of blood with an uneaten mold on the table. How would Mother like that?
Be a good girl and kiss all the boys for me,
Your loving Sister,
Maggie X
Salad Leaves, Harriet Meaker Osborne, Ivanhoe Foods, Inc., 1930
Also from this book: Appetite Special
Also from this book: Appetite Special
