Cooking Prep: A three hour tour. That, combined with a nasty squall, is all it took for the crew of the USS Minnow to get helplessly shipwrecked. The sad thing is that they couldn't have been further than a 1.5 boat ride away from Hawaii. That's probably the distance between Florida Keys and Cuba - I'm not sure, I don't drive boats. I DO know that people have taken rafts, and even swum, from Cuba to the Florida Keys.
As far as castaways go, the Gilligan's Island 7 were much better off than most of their shipwrecked peers. There were no groups of self-governing adolescent British plane crash survivors to fight off, no worries about The Others coming to kidnap them or murder them in their sleep, and they never lived with the constant threat of amoral 1%ers tracking and hunting them like animals. They had nothing to do all day except listen to the radio, verbally abuse Gilligan, eat Mary Ann's home cookin', and try different half-brained schemes to get off the island.
Perhaps if the Professor had spent more of his genius focused on building a boat instead of making coconut radios, they'd have gotten off the island by Season 2. To put this in perspective: Tom Hanks could build a raft to get off the island in Castaway, and he worked for FedEx. A professor with 6 degrees from 4 different institutions could not.
I loved this show as a kid. It was 30 minutes of mindless goofiness. You never knew who was going to show up on the island, and what terrible ways the castaways would STILL remain stranded on the island after a near rescue. Cosmonauts showed up, a young Kurt Russell showed up, Alf showed up (on Alf). Even the Harlem Globetrotters showed up. If the meaning behind the term 'jumped the shark' hadn't already been represented by the events in a terrible Happy Days episode, then having the Harlem Globetrotters get on the island, and then RESCUED, surely would have done the trick. This actually happened during one of the show's subsequent TV movies in the early 80's, well after the show's cancelation when there was nothing left to lose. Except legacy, dignity and credibility, I guess.
Gilligan's Island ran from 1964-1967 on CBS, and was actually a moderate success. It was a real Sophie's Choice if you were also a fan of The Monkees, as NBC ran that show in the same time slot on Mondays. Surprisingly, it was not The Monkees that put Gilligan and company out of business, but rather the enormous fan base of the popular western Gunsmoke, who wanted their show moved from Saturdays to Mondays. Apparently TV executives were just as smart in 1967 as they are today, because their ultimate decision was to cancel the show instead of moving it to a different time slot. Nice job, jerks.
An interesting side plot to the show was the 'rivalry' between Ginger (Tina Loise) and Mary-Ann (Dawn Wells). As Wikipedia puts it, 'the question of which of these two characters men prefer has endured long after the end of the series. The question has inspired commercials, essays, videos, and a sermon. By most accounts, the wholesome down-to-earth Mary Ann has outpolled Ginger by a sizable vote.' Dawn Wells received twice as many fan letters than Tina Loise, leading to a little bit of resentment. Apparently people liked the more wholesome, midwestern, coconut pie-making image of Mary Ann over the trashy, glitzy, high maintenance hollywood superstar image of Ginger. Maybe this popularity lead Dawn to publishing the cookbook we all know and love today. Forced segue?
Cookbook:
This book continues the tradition started with the Nancy Drew cookbook of using popular characters, episodes, plot devices and guest appearances to help provide recipe names. Names like 'Hut Pizza', 'Howell Empire Onion Pie', 'Jetback Pepperoni Squares', and 'Orange You Glad It's Onion Salad' (personal favorite) are sure to get your mouth watering as you put together the evening meal. As a value-added service, this book also suggests recipe groupings to help you plan for special events such as 'Sinko de Minnow', 'Columbus Day Landing Feast', 'Einstein's Birthday Bash', and 'Skipper's All-Vegetable Dinner'. How helpful!
Cooking Soundtrack: The Beach Boys - 50 Great Ones
Theme For the Evening: 'Sugar? On a salad?'
Cooking Companion: Kate Beever, music therapist and cooking enthusiast!
Recipes:
1. Tiny Ship Tossed Salad
1 head leaf lettuce, torn
3 stalks of celery, thinly sliced
1 11-oz can mandarin oranges, drained
2 tbsps sugar
1 tbsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
5 drops hot sauce
1/4 cup slivered almonds
2 tbsps sugar
In a salad bowl combine the lettuce, celery, and oranges. Cover and chill for up to 3 hours if desired.
In a separate bowl combine the oil, sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, and hot sauce. Chill. Stir well before serving. Makes 1/3 cup of dressing.
In a heavy saucepan combine the almonds and sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until golden. Pour on waxed paper and cool. Break into pieces and store in an airtight container.
Just before serving, toss with the vinaigrette dressing and sprinkle with caramelized almonds. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
Thoughts: In theory, this salad is a good idea. It is not a good idea if you are not a reader. In recent weeks, I have had a several close calls when it comes to measuring the appropriate quantities of ingredients to add, when to add each ingredient to a recipe, or even what kitchen tools I'll need to have on hand before I start cooking. I've even had to dig out ingredients from a recipe that were incorrectly added. Thankfully, most recipes allow for a fair amount of user error. In this case, there is no way to extract 4 tablespoons of sugar from the salad after mixing it all together. 'Tiny Ship Tossed Salad' quickly turned into 'Tiny Ship Sugar Salad'. The sad part is that I was so used to shitty recipes from Nancy Drew and Ted Nugent that I didn't think twice about adding it. It was Kate who called me out on it. Too late. We carried on and served it with dinner anyway. Better than one would think, but please don't make the same mistake.
2. Lagoon Lasagna
1 cup cooked spinach, drained well
2 cups skim ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
Dash garlic powder
1/3 cup grated fresh Parmesan
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 large jar chunky spaghetti sauce
1/2 lb uncooked lasagna noodles
3/4 lb shredded mozzarella
In a mixing bowl mix together the spinach, ricotta, eggs, garlic powder, Parmesan, pepper and nutmeg. In the bottom of a greased 9x13 glass casserole dish, spread 1/4 of the spaghetti sauce. Arrange 1/3 of the uncooked noodles over the sauce. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the spinach mixture. Repeat the layers, ending with sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Cover tightly with foil. The lasagna may be refrigerated overnight at this point. Bake at 375F for 1 hour, or 1.5 hours if chilled. Let the lasagna stand for 10 minutes before cutting. Makes 6 servings.
Thoughts: I've always wanted to make a lasagna, and I waited 35 years to do it. In reality, a 5 year old Tony Wilbur could have done it. It's that simple, and reasonably inexpensive. Now I understand why this is the go-to food for busy families everywhere. Prep took about 10-15 minutes, and the hour of baking left plenty of time for preparing the other recipes, drinking, and getting antsy for lasagna to be taken out of the oven. Try this recipe, or one of the 500 similar lasagna recipes on the interwebs.
Kate pulled this together, and she did a great job (with the help of my calming presence and reassuring attitude, of course. I was mostly busy destroying our salad with sugar while the lasagna was getting prepped).
3. Mary Ann's Famous Coconut Cream Pie
3 egg yolks
Dash of salt
3/4 cup sugar
3 cups milk
2 tbsps butter
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup coconut
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 baked 9-inch pie shell
coconut for garnish
In the top of a double boiler over simmering water beat the egg yolks and salt. Add the sugar, milk, and butter. As soon as the bottom pot boils, mix the cornstarch with a small amount of water. Add it to the egg yolk mixture a little at a time. Cook until thick, stirring constantly with a wire whisk. Add the coconut and vanilla. Pour the filling into the baked pie shell. Beat the egg whites with a small amount of sugar and spread the merengue over the pie. Sprinkle coconut on top and toast in the oven. Makes 6 servings.
Thoughts: Like Isaac Hayes' balls from my last post, this was an iconic pop culture recipe that we couldn't miss out on! Mary Ann was the queen of pies, and having her own unique recipe at our fingertips was like finding Coke's secret formula on the sidewalk.
This was another surprisingly easy recipe to make. In fact, the more I cook, the more unimpressed I become with cooks everywhere. All you need to do is follow a few simple instructions and not add copious amounts of uncalled-for sugar to recipes.
That said, I had ANOTHER literacy fail. In this case, we ended up going through about 9 eggs because I mis-read that we needed to keep the egg whites after separating them from the yolks. More proof that the entire recipe should be read thoroughly before beginning. There needs to be a cookbook laid out like IKEA furniture assembly instructions. Just give me an allen wrench and logically-ordered picture diagrams, please.
The egg whites were used as a merengue on top of the pie. This seemed unnecessary, as the custard I had made was delicious. It didn't quite merenguify on the custard, so we had to keep it in the oven, and then in the toaster oven, and then in the fridge, much longer than required. When it finally solidified it was delicious. But still unnecessary.
The dinner was great:
You guys, I know. I've taken better pictures of food. I mean, the lasagna is just hanging out on the plate looking bored and disinterested like an underpaid model. And there are no pictures of the sugar salad, or final pictures of us with the pie. What can I say? I got distracted.
Verdict: Great dinner, better company! Kate can make one hell of a lasagna, and even follows the instructions. Mary Ann would have been proud. I almost ruined 2/3 of our dinner - but on a positive note, I learned the one thing on which sugar DOES NOT taste good.
Cookbook Variety: B+ (most of this cookbook is made up of normal recipes with stupid names. Still a few recipes with an overabundance of gelatin or Worcestershire sauce, but worth a shot)
Cost: A+ (nothing broke the bank with these recipes)
Ease & Time of Preparation: A- (can't fault the lasagna for taking 1 hour. We knew what we were getting in to)
Taste: B+ = (perfect, except for the sugar salad. why is there always one recipe that keeps this category from getting an A?)
Bonus Grade:
Basic Literacy: D+
Overall Grade: B+
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