My Fat Dad

by Dawn Lerman

  Brenda, Robyn’s mom, explained how there was so much shame associated with our bodies and it was wonderful to feel liberated. She said if I was sweaty or just felt constrained by what I was wearing, I didn’t need to keep my clothes on. I said I felt more at ease covered, and she respected that.

  She felt that it was very important for girls to love their bodies no matter the size or shape. She told me she used to be extremely skinny, but after becoming a mother, she put on a little weight due to the fact that she was always cooking and baking for Robyn. Also, her ex-mother-in-law lived upstairs in the same apartment building and was always feeding her—probably because she was feeling guilty that her son left Brenda. But I bet the real reason she remained close to her daughter-in-law was because of Robyn. Robyn was the glue that kept them together. Robyn was very close to her grandma Ethel—the way I was with Beauty. Ethel was always around, and the two were only separated by a quick elevator ride or a couple flights of stairs between their apartments.

  During my stay at Robyn’s, her mom made me the most delicious dinners—while standing over the stove naked—grilled lamb chops with Saucy Susan, roast chicken with Saucy Susan, veal chops with Saucy Susan, and stuffed shells with ricotta, spinach, and garlic powder. Brenda was not a gourmet cook like Robyn’s dad, but she said that with a couple of tricks like garlic powder and Saucy Susan, anything could taste impressive. She even taught me how to use a basting brush so the meat would brown perfectly. When dinner—which always lasted a full hour—ended, we would go upstairs to Grandma Ethel’s for two episodes of I Love Lucy and chocolate egg creams, which Grandma Ethel showed me how to make. To my surprise, it had neither eggs nor cream—just syrup and seltzer. At eight on the dot, which was much earlier than my bedtime, Brenda tucked me in with a good-night kiss, while humming the words to “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy—the song Robyn always sang before her gymnastics meets. Everything felt warm there—even though they finally convinced me to un-robe. “When you let your body breathe free, your spirit will soar.” I had a renewed strength and appreciation for my body. I wanted to stay forever.

  As for Robyn, after four days of TV dinners, entertaining April, school lunches, and no showers—because my mother hated when the bathroom would steam and possibly make the raised velvet wallpaper peel—I never heard her complain again about how her mom was too doting.

  Grandma Ethel’s New York Egg Cream

  Yield: 1 egg cream

  3 tablespoons chocolate syrup (ideally Fox’s U-bet chocolate syrup)

  1⁄3 cup whole milk

  3⁄4 cup seltzer, or a little more depending on size of glass, well chilled

  Get a tall, chilled, straight-sided, 8-ounce glass. Spoon the chocolate syrup into the glass. Pour the milk over the syrup. Slowly pour in the cold seltzer, holding a spoon under the stream of seltzer to prevent it from pouring directly onto the milk and syrup. Fill the glass to within one inch of the top. Stir vigorously with a spoon to mix the syrup and milk into the seltzer until a nice foamy head forms.

  Saucy Susan Chicken Thighs and Legs

  Yield: 4 servings

  Parchment paper or cooking spray to line the cooking sheet

  4 chicken thighs and legs

  Salt and pepper, to taste

  1 cup crushed cornflakes

  1⁄2 cup of apricot Saucy Susan (see note)

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or cooking spray. Add a little salt and pepper to the cornflake crumbs and mix. Put on a flat plate. Put the Saucy Susan sauce in a shallow bowl. Now dip each chicken piece in the Saucy Susan sauce until covered, then coat with cornflake crumbs. Place the coated chicken pieces on the baking sheet and cook until crispy on the outside and cooked in the center, about 45 minutes.

  Note: You can use orange marmalade if you’re unable to find apricot Saucy Susan.

  7

  The Hampton Diet

  Diet-Friendly Jell-O Chiffon Pie, Lo-Cal Gazpacho Soup, Date Nut Bread Infused with Taster’s Choice

  Our move to New York was prompted by my dad getting a job as a creative director at the McCann Erickson ad agency. They offered him the job based on the successful campaign he launched for Taster’s Choice freeze-dried coffee, making it the number one brand in the United States. The campaign (“The Fooler”) put the coffee on the map and sales skyrocketed.

  My dad actually loved Taster’s Choice coffee and used it in everything, including his date nut health bread, which consisted of chopped dates, walnuts, and, of course—Taster’s Choice. One evening back in Chicago, just as he was about to put the bread in the oven to bake, the phone rang; it was his secretary Molly Warner with an urgent message. My dad jotted down the number and name on a piece of paper towel. He would have waited until the morning to return the call since it was an international number, but Molly said it sounded urgent and he could call collect.

  My dad called the operator and gave her the number. “This is Al Lerman with a collect call to Bob Reynolds. . . . Yes, I can wait. . . . Hello. . . . Yes. Hi. . . . No, it’s not too late. . . . Of course.”

  I watched my dad’s face as he listened in disbelief to the caller on the other end of the receiver. After a couple minutes of intense listening, he repeated several times, “Are you sure you have the right person? I am not sure. . . . I live in Chicago. . . . Tomorrow? . . . Creative director of the world? I thought only God had that title,” he said, beginning to chuckle. My dad paced around the kitchen, continuing to talk while stretching the cord from the phone, which was mounted in our kitchen next to the refrigerator. The cord extended from the kitchen to the dining room, all the way into the living room.

  I desperately tried to figure out exactly what the person on the other end of the line was saying. I hadn’t seen my dad this excited since the time he discovered how to make a chiffon pie he could eat while on Weight Watchers. Watching the conversation continue, I saw my dad jotting down all kinds of numbers. “Am I hearing you right—double? I can never say no to anything double. Yes, I will see you tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Creative director of the world!” my dad shouted to my mom. “We might be moving to New York and they are going to double my salary! I will no longer be Al the copywriter; I will be Al Lerman, the international creative director.”

  Within moments, my mom was methodically calling airlines to book an early morning flight, imagining how wonderful it would be to live close to Times Square and the Theater District, while my dad was nervously pulling clothes down from his bedroom closet, shouting, “Too conservative! Too casual! Definitely not flattering!” Entering the kitchen to remove the moist, chewy bread with a little bit of crunch from the oven, he asked my mother if she thought they would reconsider once they saw how heavy he was. “The ad industry—especially the Madison Avenue types—are not only known for their cutting-edge work, but their hip, attractive, and impeccably dressed executives.” As he buttoned his snug silk shirt, he eyed my mom and me for reassurance, and explained, “So far, I have been able to bypass the unspoken requirements of looking svelte and dapper with my catchy slogans and funny jokes; but this is the real deal, this is the big time.”

  “I know you will wow them with your funny jokes, Daddy,” I said.

  “I thank you for your vote of approval, but it’s the agency people in New York that I have to impress. Tomorrow, I’m meeting the creative team and Mr. Reynolds, who is head of the agency both in New York and abroad. He is flying in from Vevey, Switzerland, where he is working on an account, just to meet me.”

  Tapping his chin, smiling at my mom, my dad was no longer aware that I was in the room. “Mr. Reynolds said if I could do for Nescafé and McCann what I did for Taster’s Choice and Leo Burnett, I will be a star and I’ll be handsomely rewarded with many great perks—a membership to the Friars Club, where George Burns and Milton Berle and other famous celebrities give roasts, VIP guest passes for the exclusive Atrium Club with
its heated indoor pool, saunas, and Jacuzzis, and an expense account to dine at all the top restaurants: Le Cirque, 21, and the Four Seasons. You know this is a dream, right?” He beamed, gliding my mom around the apartment.

  My mom pinched him on the arm—reassuring him that this was real, reminding him of his extraordinary talents.

  For his campaigns my dad had already been receiving a lot of recognition and press in Advertising Age so it only made sense that he would be recruited by one of the biggest agencies in Manhattan.

  Upon returning from his trip, he announced the good news over a celebratory Italian dinner of two deep-dish pizzas with the works—Italian sausage, ground beef, ham, and pepperoni. Mr. Reynolds and the creative team on Nestlé—the account that they wanted him to take over—adored him. And just like that, we moved.

  The job proved to be glamorous way beyond my dad’s wildest dreams. His new position was filled with trips all over the world, martini lunches, and wild soirees that seemed to last for days. This was not a nine-to-five position, and family members needed to understand what the job entailed. But during the Christmas holidays, wives and children were invited to the annual holiday bash, which my sister and I anxiously looked forward to.

  The office Christmas celebration had a special area with a huge six-foot Christmas tree for the kids, and a Santa who listened to our wishes, and waitresses dressed like elves, serving kid-friendly food—pigs in the blanket, toasted cheese triangles, and frosted Christmas cookies. During the party, the kids of the agency employees got to stay up late and run through the cubicles decorated with posters from all the company’s recent campaigns—Exxon, Nestlé, GM, and my favorite one from Coca-Cola—“I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” I loved exploring the offices with the other kids, while the parents, oblivious to their children’s whereabouts, socialized—smoking and drinking fancy cocktails like Kir Royales and Pink Squirrels. It was at the agency, watching the adults interact and looking at the gold, silver, and bronze Clio Awards covering the walls, that I experienced a glimpse into the world of advertising, the world that had seduced my dad. The world I was not really a part of.

  With the demands of the agency, along with the enticing “Me Culture” that was exploding in Manhattan during the 1970s, staying home in the evenings or having family meals was of little interest to either of my parents. Their social calendar was busy—especially my dad’s—and neither of them was about to give it up to spend time with my sister and me. But then one wonderful morning, fate intervened, and just like that, the beautifully engraved linen envelope arrived. I watched my mom open the invitation. We were to be guests, April and I included, for the Reynolds’ annual Fourth of July BBQ at their East Hampton home. Not only were we invited to the party, we were invited to stay for the whole glorious weekend.

  Mr. Reynolds was the president and CEO of the agency, so getting an invitation to his house was more than a polite formality; it was an honor. The Reynolds lived on Park Avenue, summered in the Hamptons, and were considered very fancy and affluent, living by the Emily Post School of Etiquette. My family never summered anywhere, and we were definitely not classy or fancy. We did not dress for dinner, we did not have especially good table manners, we did not play golf or tennis, and my mother had never been to a country club or engaged in the sort of gossip that wives who lunched and drank gin and tonics did. I did not go to school uptown like the Reynolds’ three boys; I did not study Latin, sail in the summer, or ski in the winter. I did not wear pink Izod collared shirts, or pleated lime-green skirts, or own a monogrammed book bag.

  My family represented the creatives, the bohemians, the purse-carrying men—free-spirited and informal. Mr. Reynolds’s family represented the executives—the suits, the power behind the scenes that made the deals. The executives often came from Ivy League schools and had lavish lifestyles. A weekend in the Hamptons was something we only saw in magazines.

  While my whole family was excited about the invitation, the pressure that accompanied the invite was huge. My mom had no idea what to pack, and my dad was embarrassed by how he would look in a swimsuit. His weight had ballooned to almost four hundred pounds since landing the job, due to the stress of the job, the late night production meetings, and the constant three-course meals—consisting of fried appetizers, rich meat dishes, imported wines, and decadent desserts. In recent months, keeping to a diet had been nearly impossible. My dad loved fine dining, but unfortunately he was cursed with a slow metabolism. When they were growing up, his brother Melvin had eaten the same heavy food as he did and was always super-thin. In the office, people were focused on what my dad was presenting, but in the Hamptons, appearances were important, and there was no hiding behind his storyboards and well-thought-out presentations—he was presenting us and showing himself in a more relaxed setting.

  The three weeks leading up to the weekend trip to the Hamptons were filled with anxiety. My mom, who never seemed to care one bit about fitting in, seemed particularly unnerved. She did not know fancy people like this and wanted to make a good impression for my dad so he would continue to move up in the ranks of the agency. My mom, who hated to shop and usually would not purchase anything that was not on sale, took us to B. Altman’s for new white pleated culotte skirts and ruffled ankle socks and did not even look at the price. And my dad pursued a new diet that he invented. He was convinced that he had a unique concept that would revolutionize the dieting world.

  He believed that if he didn’t eat and only drank for three weeks, no matter what he was drinking, he would lose at least two pounds a day, which would add up to forty-two pounds total—making a significant difference in his appearance. My dad said that when he sipped through a straw, he would get full faster and would consume fewer calories. He would call this diet The Twenty-One Day Hampton Diet. He believed that this would outsell Weight Watchers diet books since there was less cooking, fewer rules, and quicker results.

  While for the first couple of days he carried out his plan solo, guzzling bowls of gazpacho and egg drop soup and drinking gallons of Diet Coke, I suggested that on Saturday mornings I could spend time with him and be his trusted assistant. I knew I could help him elaborate and expand his menu, making it a little healthier, adding all kinds of fruit and vegetable shakes that we could freeze for him to take to work in an insulated lunch bag. The liquid meals would defrost throughout the morning, being the perfect consistency by lunchtime. He could even carry the creations to meetings for his colleagues to sample. If the diet worked, not only would he feel better about himself, but also he would have a captive group of people that could help him market the quick weight loss plan.

  I knew there was a lot riding on the success of The Hampton Diet, so I made it my business to wake up before everyone on the weekend and run to the store. I was allowed to go by myself to the D’Agostino’s market on the corner, where I loaded up on a variety of ingredients that I thought would work well in our liquid creations: vegetables, fruits, vanilla ice milk. Beauty, who did not agree with the diet, suggested that I use V8 as a base and then enhance it with carrots, garlic, cucumbers, and fresh green peppers. I bought as much fresh produce as I could carry, and when I returned from the store, I charged into action—putting on my favorite polka-dot apron that my grandmother had made for me when my parents broke the news we were moving. Being that my mother didn’t like to cook and barely ever went into the kitchen, Beauty knew her apron would get a lot of use, and wearing it made me feel confident and closer to her.

  With my apron tied and my sleeves rolled up, I was ready for battle. My grandmother said being organized led to success, so I set out to turn our fridge into a liquid dieter’s paradise. First was detoxing the kitchen. I tossed out everything that would lead to temptation, like the leftover candy from Halloween, as well as everything that was expired and rotten. My dad used to joke, “If you want to really lose weight, just pull out one of your mom’s moldy leftovers that have been in there for God knows h
ow long, and for sure, you will get food poisoning, so no diet will be needed, just a lot of magazines and toilet paper.”

  The clean refrigerator would symbolize a fresh start—not only for my dad’s new diet but also for my family’s social life. If the Reynolds enjoyed having us, they would invite us more, and my family could actually spend time together. I began tossing the moldy Miracle Whip, scrunched-up foil packs with half-eaten tuna sandwiches, and all the mini packages of ketchup, mustard, salt, and pepper—the kind of stuff you could grab free at the Bagel Nosh on the corner that my mom loved to store in the fridge. I hoped that I could inspire my dad, and hoped he would value my input.

  Scrubbing down the insides, I made my mother promise to keep the refrigerator tidy and begged her to support the effort I was making to help my dad. While my mom usually became enraged when I talked about food or compared the way she kept our house to the way my grandmother Beauty kept her house, she miraculously consented. The refrigerator was always a battleground between my mother and me. For her, it was a place just to store things; for me, it was a place where I wanted to find order. I remember how my grandmother’s fridge was always stocked with all kinds of delicious homemade food: roasted chicken and vegetable soup, as well as fresh milk in glass bottles, platters of cut-up radishes and celery, and bowls of sliced grapes and strawberries. Everything was so tidy, fresh-looking, and organized. I remember wishing that my mother would be more like my grandmother; but since that was not going to happen, I needed to take charge.

  Our kitchen, like most New York City kitchens, was long and narrow, so for both my dad and me to work side by side required a lot of organization. I laid out all the ingredients in a way that was easily accessible, without either of us moving around too much. This way we could both make decisions together on what we were going to create. I could not wait to get started; there were so many possibilities—sweet shakes, savory shakes, hot shakes, cold shakes. My dad and I were on a mission, and we were not afraid to use our creativity. We would blend everything you could think of—from celery, tomatoes, and tortilla chips, to mashed avocado and banana shakes, to the spinach and ice cream Monster Shake that we both tried so hard not to spit out. My dad was losing a great deal of weight rapidly, so he stuck to the Hampton diet for a full twenty-one days, losing a total of twenty-five pounds before purchasing a bathing suit and tennis shorts at the Mr. Big & Tall shop for our weekend.