Making art more appetizing

For most of us, the act of selecting a supermarket Caesar salad would be unremarkable. For Julie Averbach, it was lifechanging.

“Four years ago, I was looking at a container of Caesar salad at Trader Joe’s in my hometown, Millburn, and I realized that the picture on the lid was ‘Augustus of Prima Porta,’ an ancient sculpture housed at the Vatican Museums,” Ms. Averbach said. “I recognized it from my AP art history class at Millburn High School.”

That discovery led the Yale University art history and psychology major to examine the artwork on the products and walls of Trader Joe’s grocery stores, culminating in a senior thesis titled “Collecting Worlds: Trader Joe’s as a Contemporary Cabinet of Curiosities.”

And that led to a book published last October, “The Art of Trader Joe’s: Discovering the Hidden Art Gems of America’s Favorite Grocery Store.”

In a full-circle moment, Ms. Averbach’s high school AP art history teacher, Gina Watts, came to a book talk at Montclair Book Center, one of several local independent bookstores that stock “The Art of Trader Joe’s.” Among others are WORD in Jersey City and the Book House in Millburn; of course, it’s also available on Amazon.

Ms. Averbach’s next book talk will take place August 6 at the JCC of MetroWest. (See below.)

Her Caesar salad moment kicked off an odyssey. To date, Ms. Averbach has visited about 170 of the 608 Trader Joe’s retail locations nationwide. She discovered that each one is a unique repository of art.

“It just required me to open up my eyes and see what was right in front of me,” she said. “A lot of the artworks at Trader Joe’s have rich stories behind them, and I wanted to tell these hidden stories to better appreciate the art that surrounds us every day that we rarely take the time to notice.”

Not only do reproductions of well-known paintings and sculptures adorn the stores — from Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” to Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” to Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks,” for instance — but in-house artists are engaged to assure that “each store is a portrait of the community where the store is located,” Ms. Averbach said.

“In Princeton, for example, there’s lots of college memorabilia, tapping into local pride. In Millburn, there are references to Taylor Park and other local landmarks. It’s not copy-and-paste like most national chains. There’s a craftsmanship that goes into every store.”

Ms. Averbach’s enthusiasm for the grocery chain is genuine; she is not a paid spokesperson. In fact, the book is clearly labeled “unauthorized,” meaning she had no contact with Trader Joe’s management while researching or writing it. Even after the book’s publication, the company declined to comment to reporters from media outlets, including The New York Times, who interviewed Ms. Averbach.

“This was always an independent effort. I wanted intellectual independence from the company,” she explained. “The book was written from my own perspective as someone with a background in art history, not as corporate messaging from Trader Joe’s.”

This is hardly the first publication dedicated to some aspect of the beloved grocer, and it won’t be the last. Rachel Weisel’s “Beautiful Bouquets with Trader Joe’s Flowers” is due out in December; Ms. Weisel used to live in Teaneck.

“There are dozens of books about Trader Joe’s as a pop-culture phenomenon,” Ms. Averbach said. “It has a cult following; it has not just shoppers but fans.” She noted the existence of the Kosher Trader Joe’s Facebook group with 73,000 members.

“I believe art is one overlooked factor in Trader Joe’s success – yet it’s at the heart of the brand,” she said. “At every step of the shopping experience, the art enriches our journey through the store and speaks to us more on a subconscious level. My book brings it to a conscious level.”

Ms. Averbach graduated from Yale in 2022 and now lives in Manhattan. She’s already had quite a few achievements to her credit.

“One way I connect with my Jewish identity is through tikkun olam projects,” she said. “From seventh grade until I graduated from college, I volunteered with the Friendship Circle.”

In this global Chabad-run inclusion project, young volunteers foster friendships and provide support for children and young adults with special needs and their families in the local Jewish community.

She channeled her experiences in the Friendship Circle into creating a comic book to support siblings of children with disabilities. “I felt there wasn’t much available to showcase the siblings’ perspective,” she said.

Another page from Ms. Averbach’s new book.

The comic book, 8,000 copies of which were distributed through sibling support groups, libraries, and hospitals, earned Ms. Averbach the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout can earn.

In 2017, in recognition of her comic book, the Helen Diller Family Foundation selected her as one 15 Jewish teens around the country to receive a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award for young Jewish changemakers.

“Diller is not just a one-off award, it’s an ongoing community,” Ms. Averbach said. “I’ve returned to San Francisco several times as an alum to connect with new cohorts of awardees. It’s a community where we are empowering and inspiring each other. This past year, I teamed with another alum to host a Diller alumni Shabbat dinner in Manhattan.”

In high school, she also took part in Iris Teen Tzedakah, a monthly program training Jewish youth in philanthropy and leadership. Each participant donates money toward a joint fund, matched dollar for dollar by the Herb Iris Youth and Family Philanthropy Endowment of the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest. The money is allocated by the group to charities of their choosing after due diligence.

Five years ago, Ms. Averbach founded smARTee, now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit of which she is CEO. This organization integrates her interests in art and psychology, providing immersive virtual art tours to promote positive mental health and wellness.

“I started smARTee in July 2020, as the pandemic was causing lockdowns and isolation,” she said. “The idea was to give virtual art museum experiences to older adults. Eventually, I turned it into a nonprofit as it spread through word of mouth. Over the past five years, I’ve delivered immersive art museum tours to more than 7,000 people in 22 countries through Zoom.”

And now she is introducing the reading public to the “art museum” that is Trader Joe’s.

“My book is about finding beauty in the mundane and in our everyday environment,” she said.

What: Author Julie Averbach discusses her book, “The Art of Trader Joe’s: Discovering the Hidden Art Gems of America’s Favorite Grocery Store”

When: Wednesday, August 6, 1 p.m.

Where: JCC MetroWest in West Orange

How much: The talk is free; books will be available for sale, and Ms. Averbach will sign them.

Registration: (973) 530-3474; jccmw.us/LLLsummer25; mbernstein@jccmetrowest.org

Sponsored by: The talk is sponsored by the JCC MetroWest Center for Adult Enrichment. Synergy Homecare will sponsor Trader Joe’s desserts.