Eat Dessert First!

The Red Hat Society began in 1998 when Sue Ellen Cooper started giving her friends a red hat and a copy of “Warning”, a poem about a woman in purple clothing and a red hat.  The significance of this was to remind them that life is short and every day is a gift that needs to be celebrated.

In no time, a group formed to simply enjoy life and each other, and the Society has taken off.  There are hundreds of thousands of members all over the U.S. and Canada who enjoy getting together, and one of the results of getting together is the book Eat Dessert First! (2007.  ANF 641.86 EAT).

The scrumptious strawberry shortcake on the cover literally screams “open this book, find this recipe and make it – NOW!”

This book is personalized with little bits of information on the contributors and where they are from.  They all have nicknames, some more interesting than others – like Queen of Tea-light and Queen Clumsy Coral.  Here and there are  photographs of some of the cooks in their red hats.

Once I opened this book, I found lots of recipes that called to me, sang to me, and lured me down calorie lane.  I had to photocopy some of them, only for personal study though so I did not infringe copyright law.  One I will definitely have to try is Auntie Joyce’s Wine Biscuits, as we always seem to have one or two half-finished bottles of wine that we just can’t pour out even though we don’t like it.

As expected, the book covers all types of desserts from cookies, cakes, and pie to elaborate concoctions with multi-layers and exotic ingredients.  Many of them reflect the American penchant for making dishes using mixes and other packaged items.  The Cake Mix Cinnamon Rolls look pretty good in the photograph.

>> Find this book in VIRL’s catalogue

Taken with permission from Gloria Novak’s “Good Reads at the Library”