Let's Eat: A Narrative Cookbook

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

The strongest recommendation for this cluster of editorials and recipes
is the author’s energy and enthusiasm for small-town family life.

Dinah Gougиre is a wife, mother, and columnist for a weekly newspaper.
Her columns, which consist of comments on her experiences as a wife and
mother, always end with a recipe. Sometimes she is able to relate the
recipe to the subject of the column. For example, a column on her grade
schooler’s introduction to St. Patrick’s Day is followed by a recipe
for green (avocado) soup. Let’s hope the soup has more substance than
the connection. A column on cluster flies is followed by a recipe for
clam sauce. The segue: there are no flies in the sauce. This is not my
number-one criterion for trying a recipe.

The recipes appear to have been selected at random and are presented in
no discernible order. The selection does not support any identifiable
goal or purpose.

In scope, the recipes range from play dough to shepherd’s pie,
spaghetti sauce to oatmeal cookies. In quantity, they are too few to be
a useful resource: one recipe for a beverage, two for bread, two for
vegetables, a few more for soups, salads, desserts, and main dishes.
Proofreading and more attention to the details of the recipes would have
helped.

The narratives accompanying the recipes provide a humorous window into
day-to-day life in the idyllic “slow lane,” where children, husband,
and assorted relatives are the focus of life, and where small-town
newspapers print recipes simply because a reader submits them.