Recipes for Women's Lives by Carol Guensburg
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Call it a delicious irony. The National Organization for Women (NOW), whose members sport buttons proclaiming Women Make Policy, Not Coffee and Don't Assume I Cook, has just produced a cookbook.
Don't laugh. Don't Assume I Don't Cook: Recipes for Women's Lives is one part kitchen aid, one part rabble-rouser. It serves up instructions for Susan B. Anthony's Cream Biscuits, Malaysian Coconut Pork, Berry Bombe and scores of other temptations. But it also provides a zesty smorgasbord of anecdotes, inspiring quotes and NOW's history, issues and actions.
Kim Gandy, the organization's executive vice president and the force behind this fundraiser, acknowledges its additional goal of making the women's-rights movement palatable to a broader audience. "I thought this might be a way to introduce more people to NOW in a non-threatening way," she says. "People at their leisure can pick up the book for one thing and find something else." At the very least, they'll discover flavorful sustenance, often achieved with modest effort. Gandy proved this by whipping up baked French toast during a breakfast interview at her cozy row house in Washington, D.C.
"We had whole philosophical discussions about how it might be received," admits Gandy, who pitched the idea after a marketing conference. There was some hesitation. But, as NOW President Patricia Ireland explains in a press release, "NOW has always encouraged the nourishment of women's minds and souls, so it seems natural for us to write a book about nourishing the body as well."
The book stirs in history, from the group's founding in 1966, to the successful 1973 challenge of Little League rules denying access to girls, to its organizing of the Women of Color & Allies Summit in 1998. It also mixes in outrages, such as Phyllis Schlafly's explanation for opposing shelters for battered women.
Gandy, a NOW national officer since 1987 and vice president since 1991, says the demands of her job limit her cooking to weekends. "But then, ahh," the cookbook collector says with a smile. The book boasts a handful of her recipes, including Kim's Red Beans and Rice and Aunt Exa's Praline Bars--favorites from her childhood in Shreveport, La.
Don't Assume I Don't Cook has many strengths. Its recipes range from work-night simple to weekend fussy, familiar to exotic, healthful to indulgent. It's interesting and entertaining. Its spirit is joyful and sassy, from Jane Evershed's First Supper cover illustration to its proudly purple page margins.
NOW's top leadership has been pleased with response to the book, too, Gandy says. She estimates more than 3,000 of the initial 10,000 copies have been sold, and feedback has been positive. "We're already starting to talk about a second edition," she enthuses as we scrape our plates.
Resources Don't Assume I Don't Cook: Recipes for Women's Lives
by Jane Evershed
National Organization for Women, Limited edition, 1998
Order this title from Amazon.com.
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