Wednesday, August 21, 2019

A ladies' luncheon that will ruin your blender

Ann Seranne's Good Food with a Blender (1974) is full of all the recipes I'd expect from an old blender cookbook: meat and veggie purées molded into various aspics and mousses, health drinks loaded with raw eggs and various yeast and vitamin supplements, vegetables "easily" grated by being blended in cups and cups of water before being drained and strained for use. Maybe I'll feature some of those someday, but as I was reading through, I noticed how many chilly, dainty foods the book featured, and it struck me that I haven't done a ladies' luncheon post in a long time.

Plus, most of my old ladies' luncheon posts are for winter, so I put together a special warm-weather luncheon with all the dishes so cool and delicate that the ladies might have to retreat to the fainting couch.

First, a dainty little appetizer:


I'm not sure what cream cheese mixed with pineapple juice, peanut butter, curry powder, and green onions should be served on-- probably tiny, crisp crackers shaped like flowers and delicately scented like baby powder or some bullshit.

Pair that with some finger sandwiches. For the bolder women, the ones who would introduce themselves by their own first names instead of "Mrs. Kenneth Misner," maybe something filled with a salty, eggy mash with as much of a whisper of heat as the old recipes offered:


Yes, it calls for a full quarter teaspoon of Tabasco!

And for the ones who thought that when the ladies get together to eat, everything should be dessert-adjacent:


The finger sandwiches have a prune, cheesecake-ish filling. Yum?

Something that doubles as a salad and main dish is expected.


So it's tomatoes stuffed with cold chicken and eggs, served on crisp lettuce.

And finally, the dessert salad, meant to correct the menu's deficiencies in gelatin, mini-marshmallows, and most importantly, pink:


This is the first recipe I've seen that calls for putting miniature marshmallows in a blender with hot fruit cocktail juice.

I hope this would be an appropriate ladies' luncheon menu. If not, it's just a chance to burn your blender out for no good reason.

3 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what the Hawaiian dip has to do with Hawaii if you use the milk instead of the pineapple juice. I'm also intrigued by the idea of putting marshmallows into a blender. I see it being a sticky mess. I also wonder if marshmallow fluff would work better.

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    1. I think maybe the curry powder is meant to be vaguely Hawaiian too, since cooks in the '60s and '70s tended to equate all kinds of cuisines that really didn't have much to do with each other, but I could be wrong.

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  2. I kinda thought that, too, but it's a stretch. I've heard of Japanese curry, but it's not like Indian curry so they are out of luck that way.

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