One-year-old Will Krauss obligingly tastes Baby Bolognese, rolls it around his mouth, and lets some of the food dribble down his lips in a lusty drool. He looks blankly at the table set before him, on which beckon a wide array of colorful purees in white egg-shaped bowls.
Before he becomes too distrac-ted from the task at hand -- tasting all this food - his mother, Liz, spoons Ginger Pears into his tiny mouth.
"Ah! Ah!" he says in staccato baby talk, signaling approval.
The Krauss tasting team was among more than a dozen women and children who gathered recently in an antique-filled home to sample Orgagaganics, a new brand of organic baby food cooked in Wellesley, Massachusetts, ordered online, and delivered frozen to customers' doors in the metro-Boston area.
At a time when childhood obesity is epidemic and many parents are worried about what their kids eat, entrepreneurs Sara Cabot and Antonia Perry are hoping Orgagaganics can orient infant taste buds toward healthy, good-tasting food. "You have a window from six months to 12 months to train their palate," says co-owner Perry, an Australian-bred former investment banker whose fifth child is on the way.
Babies were tasting Happy Apples, Parsnip Zucchini Mash, Cauliflower Power, Chicken Little, Chicken Big (it has more texture), and Gaga Greens. There's also Fruitie Tootie (a mix of pears and plums), Lettie's Lentils (carrots, potatoes, onions, lentils, celery and chicken stock) and Squash'd (butternut squash).
If the whole endeavor sounds posh, it is.
Co-owner Sara Cabot is a British expat who used to work for Andrew Lloyd Webber until she married a Boston Cabot, moved to Massachusetts, and had four kids. Perry, who lives in Wellesley with her investment banker husband, met Cabot at a playground in Cambridge. The two realized they had a lot in common, including increasingly less time to cook digestible meals for their babies.
The concept of frozen organic baby food is popular in England and Australia, but the idea is new in the US.
Perry and Cabot prepare the food themselves in a commercial kitchen in Wellesley; if you won't be home to receive their frozen delivery, you can leave an ice cooler on your doorstep.
Orgagaganics can stay frozen for a year, but the food is best eaten within three months and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator.
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