Date I made these recipes:
May 5, 2015
The Anne of Green
Gables Cookbook by Kate Macdonald; illustrated by Barbara DiLella
Published by: Oxford University
© 1985; ISBN 0-19-540496-3
Purchased at Arc's Value Village
Recipe" "Cowcumber" (Cucumber) Boats – p. 9
The Louisa May Alcott
Cookbook compiled by Gretchen Anderson; illustrated by Karen Milone
Published by: Little,
Brown and Company
© 1985; ISBN 0-316-03951-9
Purchased at Arc's Value Village
Recipe: (Blueberry) Muffins
– p. 6
Every so often, my husband heads out of town to do
"guy" things, and when he does, I usually call up my friends to see
who wants to go out for drinks and dinner.
This year, I decided that while the cat was away, this mouse would also
enjoy a home-cooked "chick-lit" dinner and so selected one item each
from The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook
and The Louisa May Alcott Cookbook. Not that Andy wouldn't have appreciated the
food I made – tuna salad in cucumber boats and muffins – but it wasn't exactly
"guy" food, you know?
Part of the inspiration to use these two cookbooks came
after reading the sad news that the actor who played Gilbert Blythe in the Canadian Broadcast Corporations' version
of Anne of Green Gables, died at age
46. That is very sad news. For Anne fans, Gilbert played the nemesis,
later true love of our heroine, Anne Shirley.
As soon as the news hit, Anne of
Green Gables fans hit Facebook and Twitter full force to express sympathy
and to console each others. Books can be
so powerful, can't they?
At the risk of sounding like I'm at an AA meeting, I am an
avid reader, always have been, always will be.
In my younger days, at Sacred Heart Catholic grade school, I do believe
I read every single Nancy Drew book
in the school's tiny library. I also read all of The Bobbsey Twins,
pretty much every Cherry Ames
nursing books and countless other "young adult" fiction.
In junior high school, I realized early on that I would
major in English (literature) in college because I enjoyed every single book or
story we read, even if, by the time I graduated, I ended up reading some of
them several times. The Greek classic, Antigone and King Lear come to mind as books I never wanted to read again but
alas, guess what some of my college English classes listed as required reading? Yup—those two books.
I also managed to read and re-read some of the
following: Jane Eyre, The Red Badge of
Courage, Candide and Animal Farm. (On a 10th grade English quiz, my
teacher asked us the name of Mr. Rochester's horse - Mr. Rochester was a character in Jane Eyre - and I wrote very snarkily
"I don't know. Trigger?" Hopefully, some of you are old enough to
understand the reference to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans!) And then once in
college majoring in English, I took classes in British Literature, American
Literature, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton and endless others which required me
to read and re-read some of the favorites all over again. I even had to write and then recite Chaucer's
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales as
well as Hamlet's soliloquy which was fine but not exactly impressive to my
dates: "Hey, you want to hear me
recite Hamlet?"
BUT. I am almost
certain that I never, ever was required to read Anne of Green Gables or Little
Women. Well, this puzzles, does it
not? I can see where the Anne of Green Gables series might have
fallen through the cracks (it takes place in Canada – not that there's anything
wrong with O Canada) but Little Women? Or Little
Men? (But mostly Little Women?). Years later, I still feel cheated!
Lucky for me, my Aunt Mary and Uncle Bud, gave me a copy of Anne of Avonlea for Christmas in 1972
so I was somewhat acquainted with Anne Shirley but still. I loved that book though and still have
it. Even better, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation created a
miniseries of all the Anne books which of course I watched, and Little Women was made into a movie
several times over, my favorite being the 1933 version starring Katharine
Hepburn as Jo. Thank goodness for the
"silver" screen or I would have completely missed out on these
stories. Completely. Is it to late to write to my hometown board
of education and/or my undergrad alma mater?
If you ask me, and you didn't, both of these books were way
ahead of their time in writing such strong female characters – Anne Shirley and
Jo March, most especially Jo March.
Louisa May Alcott published Little
Women in 1868, just after the Civil War ended and methinks that more than a
few eyebrows were raised about what a tour de force Jo March was. That said, Jane Austen led the way with all
of her female characters in her books that were written almost 50 years earlier
so there is precedent but women authors writing strong female characters were
not the norm unlike today's authors.
So a bit about these two classic books and classic
characters: In Anne of Green Gables, Anne Shirley is an orphan who was taken in by
a brother and sister – Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert - who sought to adopt a boy
to help with their farm but ended up instead with Anne. As expected, Anne's arrival didn't exactly
set them on fire and Anne was constantly mixing it up with Marilla (played by
Colleen Dewhurst in the CBC
series). Anne fell in love with teaching
and with Gilbert Blythe and their romance and coming of age is chronicled in
all the Anne books.
Little Women
follows a similar plot although instead of teaching, Joe March wants to be a
writer. In the story, Jo (my favorite)
is one of four March sisters who are all helping out their mother during the
Civil War while their father has gone off to fight. Like me, Jo was interested in reading and
writing and ultimately (although not like me) was employed as a contributing
writer to a newspaper. And this is
good—I like women characters who refused to become the traditional housewife
and mother as was expected all women at that time. That said, in 1979, an Australian movie, My Brilliant Career, was released
starring Australian actress Judy Davis and New Zealand actor Sam Neill and I
temporarily changed my mind on the whole career before marriage thing. The
movie is set in 1897 and Judy Davis is yet another woman determined to have a
writing career. She almost derails that
plan after meeting the very handsome
Sam Neill but then dash it all, comes to her senses and refuses to marry him,
instead wanting what the title promises – My
Brilliant Career. Refused to marry
Sam Neill – what?! I remain peeved to
this day that she didn't give up her career. Seriously. Well, you know—every rule has an exception
and this was mine. For the record, I
would have gladly married him even if it meant I had to live in the Australian
outback. I think (read: probably not).
But I digress. Let's
talk about the recipes and these books.
Each book is targeted toward kids rather than adults (which means the
recipes are a snap) and it was a challenge for me to find two items that I
could cobble together for my chick-lit meal. Each book is heavy also on the sweets and not
so primed for the savory items but at last, I decided to make Anne Shirley's
"cowcumber" (cucumber) boats and Louisa May Alcott's muffins (mine
were blueberry) and I have to tell you that they were not half bad. Instead of making cucumber boats though, I
diced up a cucumber and added it to the salad as it was just easier that way. And I loaded up the muffins (which are not
super sweet at all) with blueberries after careful contemplation of blueberry
alternatives in the fruit section of my grocery store.
At the end of the day, I had my chick-lit food, I had my
waltz down memory lane of these two classic books, ruminated about the writer I
might have been had I put any amount of effort into it (I didn't), and with
that, just stretched out and relaxed while enjoying my latest in modern-day
chick-lit thrillers which I probably shouldn't read when home alone because ew,
some parts are just gruesome and spooky, but do it nevertheless because I enjoy
the genre. There's a time and place for
Shakespeare, folks, and this ain't it!
And THAT is how you have a chick-lit evening and a chick-lit
repast. Enjoy!
"Cowcumber"
(Cucumber) Boats – makes 6 "boats"
1/3 cup elbow macaroni
1 7-ounce can tuna
1 medium carrot
1 medium celery stalk
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
Pinch of pepper
3 medium cucumbers
*Ann's Note: I
decided to forgo the cucumber boats and instead made up the salad as directed,
but added chopped cucumbers to the mix.
It was so much easier this way! I
increased the macaroni to about 1.5 cups (how much you make is up to you) and
increased most of the other ingredients accordingly. I also added a pinch of sugar to offset the
lemon juice.
Put about 3 cups of water and a pinch of salt into the small
saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add the elbow macaroni gradually and boil
until tender – about 8 to 10 minutes.
Drain the macaroni a wire strainer and put it in a mixing bowl.
Open the can of tuna and drain it in the wire strainer. Add the tuna to the macaroni.
Wash and peel the carrot and grate it into the bowl. Wash and dry the celery and chop it into tiny
pieces on the cutting board. Add it to
the macaroni and tuna.
Measure the mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add to the bowl and stir with the fork.
Peel the cucumber with the vegetable peeler and cut off the
ends. Cut each cucumber in half, lengthwise.
With the spoon scoop out and discard the seeds and watery flesh. Fill each cucumber boat with tuna mixture.
Muffins – makes 18
muffins (Ann's Note: 12 if you heap the
muffin pan)
3 ½ cups flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 ¾ cups milk
1 egg well beaten
3 tablespoons melted butter
½ cup cranberries, dates, apples, berries, or nuts
(optional)
Preheat the oven to 350 and grease the muffin pans.
Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar)
into a large bowl.
Add the milk, egg, melted butter, and optional
ingredients. Stir until smooth.
Pour into greased muffin tins. (Ann's Note:
The batter was way too sticky to pour so I used a spoon and spooned the
mixture into the pans.)
Bake for 25 minutes.
(Ann's Note: I really heaped my
muffin tin cups so if you do that, bake until the center is cooked
through. I think I went about another 10
minutes.)
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