Let’s face it – we cakers are a deceitful bunch. In my third instalment of Writers Cooking Caker, Helen Wainman recounts a story about an elderly caker (they’re the worst ones) who managed to fool the entire world. Okay. Maybe just a television producer.
Helen is the author of The Rabbit Hole Monologues, which chronicles her battle with breast cancer. I met her at a benefit for Wellspring London a few years back. When bad things happen to people, they either retreat inwards or reach out. Lucky for us, Helen reached out. The Rabbit Hole Monologues is tender, funny, touching and raw.
Here’s Helen's (sour) cherry pie story:
Many years ago, I produced features for a morning TV show. We were always on the lookout for entertaining, heart-warming stories and heard of an elderly woman who lived in one of the small communities surrounding Lake Erie. We were told she was an elderly widow who spent her time making homemade pies for all the truck stops that lined Highway 401.
How much more heartwarming can you get? So we set off one morning to do the story. We arrived at her apartment and she was as sweet as we expected. We entered the apartment, expecting to see flour on the counters, bowls full of dough, pots on the stove bubbling with fruits ready to scoop into pie shells. But there was no evidence of any pie baking.
“Could we show you baking some pies?” I asked.
“Is that what you want, dear?”
She then opened a freezer adjacent to her counter and pulled out six aluminium containers, each one holding a brand-name frozen pie crust.
Okay. I could understand that. You can’t have everything. A ready-to-bake bottom crust would make it easier for her to make so many pies.
I continued, still hopeful: “Can we see you adding the pie filling?” I was convinced I would finally see homemade pie filling that had taken hours to make. She opened her cupboard doors – and all we could see were dozens and dozens of cans of E.D. Smith cherry pie filling. She grabbed several, went to her electric can opener and opened each can.
Galurgh. Galurgh. Galurgh.
We watched as the bright red, gelatinous goo slowly eased its way out of each tin. Six cans in all. Dumped into six pie crusts. It took seconds.
By this time, the cameraman and I couldn’t look at each other. We couldn’t speak. But I tried again.
“How do you top the pies? I hear you make lattice tops to cover them.”
Up went the freezer lid again. Out they came. Six store-bought frozen lattice tops. We were stunned. There was no visual and we didn’t have a story. “Port Stanley Pie Lady” would be a story all right but it would be told around a dinner table for years to come. To be fair, the sweet old lady never claimed to make homemade pies. But at least we ended up with a recipe for Easy Peasy Cherry Pie.
Here's the recipe, folks. It don't get much easier than this. Thanks, Helen!
2 frozen pie crusts
1 tin E.D. Smith Cherry Pie filling
Place bottom of pie crust in pie dish. Aluminium will do. Dump pie filling in crust. Put second pie crust on top. Bake at whatever temperature pie crust people tell you to use.
In my second instalment of Writers Cooking Caker, I’ve asked first-time novelist Grace O’Connell to step away from her quill and ink jar and into the kitchen. Grace is the author of Magnified World, a haunting and magical story about a young woman coming to terms with her mother's death.
Now, let it be known that cakers love their balls. Already on this blog, I’ve featured Rice Krispies Golf Balls, Porcupine Meatballs, Snowballs and Dancing Mothballs – although in these health-conscious days, most cakers are trying to cut back on their mothball intake.
In this recipe, the best of both worlds – sweet and sour – come together as beautifully as a Barbra and Neil duet. Best of all, you can pour this sauce over anything: rice, hot dogs, Cool Whip. I even dabbed a little behind my ears.
Here’s Grace’s recipe in her own words:
The meatballs are made with ground beef, egg, breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, etc. and baked in the oven. Pretty standard. The sweet and sour sauce though, is pure caker:
1/2 cup ketchup (yep, that's the first ingredient for this exotic wonder)
1/2 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice (from a lemon-shaped bottle, preferably)
1 cup white sugar (it's what's for dinner)
Combine the above ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 2-3 minutes. Dissolve 3 tablespoons cornstarch in 1/4 cup cold water. Stir that mixture into the sauce. Cook gently and stir until thick and clear (It should be kind of goopy, but also smooth. If that makes sense. Viscous? Is that the word?). [Editor’s note: I don’t understand most words over two syllables.]
Pour it over your meatballs, add some Uncle Ben’s rice and you've got a classic caker dinner.
You certainly do, Grace. And your sweet and sour sauce made my eyes roll back in my head. 'Nuf said. Catch Grace and her Writers Cooking Caker alumna, Dani Couture, at Toronto's Word on the Street Festival this Sunday, September 23.
About Magnified World
What's a girl supposed to do after her mother kills herself by walking into the Don River with her pockets full of unpolished zircon stones? Maggie removes the zircon stones from the inventory of the family's New Age shop and opens up for another day of business. Then her blackouts begin, as do the visits from a mysterious customer who offers help for Maggie's blackouts and her project of investigating her mother's past in the American South. Is Maggie breaking down in the way her mother did, or is her "madness" a distinctive show of grief? Nobody really knows, not her father, her boyfriend or her psychiatrist, and especially not Maggie, who has to make some crazy decisions in order to work to feel sane again. A vivid look at the various confusions that can set in after a trauma and an insightful, gently funny portrait of a woman in her early twenties, especially relatable to readers who grew up in the eighties and nineties, Magnified World dramatizes the battle between the head and the heart and the limitations of both in unlocking something as complicated as loss.
This week, I’m introducing a brand-new feature called “Writers Cooking Caker.” It’s like when Stacy Q guest-starred as Cinnamon on Facts of Life.
Some of you might assume that writers don’t cook; that we’re too busy writing novels about elusive white whales or women involved in S&M relationships to even think about food. But that’s simply not true. After all, food is what feeds the imagination. And can you think of any food more imaginative than caker food? So every now and then, I’ll post a caker recipe from a fellow writer, along with some information about his or her latest book.
This week, I'm welcoming Dani Couture and her Peanut Butter Gems. Dani recently published her first novel, Algoma, a lovely and poignant book about a young family dealing with tragedy. Speaking of lovely, her Peanut Butter Gems ain’t nothing to sneeze at neither. They taste like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. You don’t even have to bake them! How caker is that? And they're delicious. (Especially when frozen IMHO.)
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup butter
¾ pound icing sugar (3 cups)
Melt chocolate pieces in top of double boiler. Meanwhile mix together peanut butter, cracker crumbs, butter and icing sugar. Pat this into a 13 x 9-inch pan. (See note.) Spread the melted chocolate on top. Chill and cut into small squares. Freezes very well.
Note: I’m more of an 8 x 8-inch guy myself, so I used that instead. Trouble was, it made the chocolate layer thicker, which made cutting the squares harder, especially once the chocolate was set. If you make them in a square pan, ease up on the chocolate layer. Otherwise, it’ll be tough cutting through and your squares will end up looking more like geometrical shapes.
Source: Hometown Recipes of Amherstburg, Wesley United Church U.C.W.
BONUS RECIPE!!
Dani also passed along her recipe for Aunt Paulette’s Party Potato Bake. They’re like Schwartzies Hash Browns, only with more fat (if you can believe it) because they have a potato chip crust. Aunt Paulette, I'll party with your potatoes anytime.
Aunt Paulette's Party Potato Bake
1 bag of Cavendish hashbrowns (those ones where the potatoes are little square potatoes)
1 tub full fat sour cream
1 cup sharp cheddar
1 medium onion chopped
1 stick salted butter
1 cup crushed plain chips
Salt and Pepper to taste
Saute chopped onion in butter. Empty hashbrown bag into a large bowl, mix in room temp butter, sour cream, sauteed onion, and cheddar. Salt and pepper as you please. Layer mess into a baking tin so it's about 3" deep (too thin and it dries out) Sprinkle crushed chips on top. Bake at 350 for 20 odd minutes depending on your stove.
About Algoma:
A year after watching his brother go through the ice, twelve-year old Ferd refuses to believe Leo is gone. Convinced his brother is still alive, Ferd enters into a campaign of letters to persuade his brother to come home, "mailing" notes in any pool of water he can find. Soon, sopping notes begin to appear around the house – folded squares of paper in the rain reservoir, kitchen sink, and washing machine. Ferd’s mother, Algoma, finds the letters and keeps them to herself in an attempt to hide them from her increasingly distant husband. Gaetan, a bartender who obsessively records the weather, rejects his family’s increasingly erratic behaviour and disappears one night leaving behind his weather journal, a newly pregnant wife, and a son consumed with talking to the dead.
More info.
