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From Cancer to Career

Written by: James Chan

Article Overview: Christina Pirello tells her story on how she evolved from having cancer to having her own cooking show.

From Cancer to Career

In November 1997, Christina Pirello became a star. That~{!/~}s when her program Christina Cooks began to be broadcast on public television stations throughout the US. Hers was the first cooking program to make a macrobiotic diet~{!*~}devoid of meats and heavy on grains and vegetables~{!*~}palatable to a mainstream television audience. Overnight, she went from teaching a few people at a time how to cook her way to addressing a national audience. This was an exciting moment, a vindication of what she believes in.

She wouldn~{!/~}t be having these good times, however, if she had not had a terribly bad time. At the age of 26, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Her doctor told her that she had only six months to live. Christina~{!/~}s mother had died of cancer, so she had some idea of what lay ahead. In any case, she decided to quit her job at an advertising agency and spend the short time she thought she still had doing things she liked.

While she was telling this story to her employer, a fellow employee was eavesdropping. He told Christina that he was acquainted with a man who knew how to recover from cancer by changing one~{!/~}s diet. Christina wasn~{!/~}t particularly hopeful, but she figured that she had little to lose. The man was Robert Pirello, who told her that he had gotten the idea from a book written by a Japanese thinker, Michio Kushi.

Christina followed the diet, and within 18 months, she had a complete remission of her leukemia. She also married Robert Pirello. ~{!0~}My doctor told me, ~{!.~}Sometimes God just makes a miracle,~{!/!1~} Christina recalls. ~{!0~}He also said, ~{!.~}Food will not make you better.~{!/!1~}

Christina, though, was inclined to place her faith in the diet. In any event, she says, it makes people feel better. Having grown up as a butcher~{!/~}s daughter, disgusted by the blood and guts endemic to her father~{!/~}s work, she was so grateful to get her life back that she became an evangelist for whole grains and vegetables.

In 1987, she began teaching cooking classes out of her home, charging each student $25 for a three-hour cooking lesson. She then compiled her recipes into a cookbook, and started to try to get on television.

Because she cared more about getting her message out than about making money right away, she accepted an arrangement with a local PBS station to do the show without any payment, other than an announcement of a number to call to order her cookbook at the end of each half-hour program.

She is very grateful for the widespread acceptance of the program, but success brought costs she didn~{!/~}t anticipate. ~{!0~}We were selling books like crazy,~{!1~} she says. But she quickly found herself paying high legal fees to protect her image and her recipes. The producer was taking a cut of her book sales, and the stations that ran it were taking another cut. She found that she was overpaying for the toll-free number for taking orders.

Indeed, her overnight success brought about so many new expenses that her husband, Robert, who had been working with Christina in her business, had to take a job to pay the bills.

In the long term, of course, the exposure is giving Christina some exciting new opportunities. Robert has returned to working with her and finding underwriters for the show, and making sure it continues to be aired and is promoted. Christina has been told that she has the potential to become ~{!0~}the Martha Stewart of macrobiotic cooking.~{!1~}

Christina and Robert are still the only employees of their business, which remains in their home. But even Michio Kushi, the guru who started it all, told her recently, ~{!0~}If you don~{!/~}t move out of your home, you cannot grow.~{!1~}

Christina respects the advice of the man whose ideas she credits with saving her life. But she adds, ~{!0~}My goal is never to build an empire. I want to tell people how they can have their health.~{!1~}

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Article Tags: advertising agency, bad time, blood and guts, butcher, christina cooks, christina pirello, evangelist, fellow employee, good times, leukemia, macrobiotic diet, mainstream television, michio kushi, national audience, public television stations, remission, television audience, thinker, vindication, whole grains



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