The Ekus Women Are a Culinary Family

Written by Melissa Karen Sances
Photos by Nikki Gardner

Published in Northampton Living (May 2024)

When Sally Ekus was 4 years old, she had dinner with Julia Child. Technically, the already legendary chef was a guest of her parents, who were running a culinary agency in Hatfield, Massachusetts. And before they plated an elaborate Chinese feast, it should be noted that Sally was supposed to be sleeping.

But the smell of the meal wafted up the stairs to her bedroom, and soon Sally could hear Child’s distinctively loud, high-pitched voice mingling with her mother’s.

“I wish I could say I understood the gravitas of the situation,” she says now. “I had tremendous FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as a kid, and I knew enough to know that she was someone very special.”

So she followed the smells and the sounds to the dining room, pulled up a chair, and plopped down next to the guest of honor. And, after a bite of a rice dish, this special memory was sealed with a taste – something new, something sharp. She would learn later that it was fermented bean paste, but as a kid she wasn’t impressed. “That’s not a flavor profile that most kids are craving,” she explains. “But as an adult I deeply appreciate that my young self has this taste memory.”

Today, as her mother Lisa’s successor at the Ekus Group – and as a mom herself – taste is a touchstone of her life. Sally grew up cooking with Lisa, and her 4-year-old daughter, Maybelline, has grown up cooking with her. Maybelline’s specialty lately is making “experiments” in their home kitchen: a potent blend of spices – like turmeric, cumin and 5-spice powder (cinnamon, star anise, cloves, peppercorns and fennel seeds) –whose scents she savors before mixing them together and presenting the concoction to her mom.

“Food was a part of my DNA without my knowing that that wasn’t necessarily the norm,” Sally says. But she is keenly aware of her daughter’s “adventurous palate” and what a privilege it is to introduce her to a world of taste.

Her mother had so many cookbooks that she created a 2-story library to house them all, about 8,000 altogether. When Lisa founded the company in 1982, it was the first public relations agency devoted to cookbooks, chefs and food products. Two decades later, she formed the group’s literary agenting division and has since negotiated more than 400 book deals. Sally, who never envisioned following in her mother’s footsteps, joined the agency in 2009 after moving home to figure out her next career move. Now, as the president and lead agent of the Ekus Group, she also runs the boutique culinary division of the Jean V. Naggar agency – the same agency that employed Lisa in her first job in publishing.

“I had been informally training for the job my whole life,” Sally says, and Lisa was excited for her to take on a larger role. But there was one aspect of the work that her mom couldn’t help with.

Early in Sally’s career, she attended a professional workshop where Lisa was speaking as part of a panel. “I was in the audience and I raised my hand,” she remembers. “Someone handed me a microphone, and my hand was shaking because I was so nervous to ask a question in a room full of people. I knew if I was going to do this work and step into a position of leadership someday, I had to get myself together. People suggested I join an improv class or Toastmasters, and improv sounded more fun.”

Sally joined Happier Valley Comedy and took all the improv classes she could, doubting she would ever take the stage as a comedian. Today she is part of the main stage troupe and is on the board of the nonprofit.

Her job, she says, lies at the intersection of storytelling and improv: “If I’m truly improvising, I am listening and replying from a place of truth and positivity.” So when clients share with her about their very personal relationships with food and the stories they want to publish, she strives to meet them where they are.

Sally’s career may have taken an unexpected turn, but having a family was always in the cards. “Even though I didn’t know professionally what I wanted to be when I grew up, I have always known that I wanted to be a mom,” she says. Though she was diagnosed with leukemia when she was just a little younger than Maybelline, she has been in remission for 36 years. “It was a big question mark whether I could get pregnant because of my cancer history. But I always wanted to be a mom, and Maybelline made me a mother.”