by Ashton Lee
—Courtesy Mrs. Rose Williams Turner, Natchez, Mississippi
Connie McShay’s Frozen Fruit Salad
Ingredients you will need:
8 ounces cream cheese
½ cup sugar
1 cup mayo
1 cup white raisins
½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
1 can fruit cocktail (drained)
Poppy seed dressing
Mix cream cheese and sugar; add mayo, raisins, nuts, and fruit cocktail; pour cocktail into twelve lined muffin tins and freeze; package in large Ziploc bag. (For additional flavor, add two tablespoons of poppy seed dressing upon serving.)
—Courtesy Alice Feltus, Lucy Feltus, and
Helen Byrnes Jenkins, Natchez, Mississippi
Periwinkle Lattimore’s Baked Sherry Custard
Ingredients you will need:
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cups whole milk
Dash of salt
3½ teaspoons sherry
1½ teaspoons vanilla
3 egg whites
1 additional tablespoon of sugar
Combine the two tablespoons of sugar, milk, and salt in a pan; cook on simmer to low heat until sugar dissolves—approximately five minutes; remove and then add sherry and vanilla together.
In a separate bowl, combine the egg whites with the additional tablespoon of sugar; whip or beat into soft-peak stage; and add the milk mixture slowly. Use sieve to strain the entire mixture into a two-cup baking dish; place dish in a baking pan with water bath (usually halfway up the sides) and bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour. If toothpick comes out clean when inserted in middle of mixture, custard is done. Serve warm or cold.
—Courtesy Helen Louise Jenkins Kuehnle,
Natchez, Mississippi
Becca Broccoli’s Cherry Cola/Lime Punch
Ingredients you will need:
1 liter any chilled cola beverage (do not use diet variety)
1 liter any chilled ginger ale beverage (do not use diet variety)
1 jar maraschino cherries
3 limes
Pour cola and ginger ale into large punch bowl and stir. Add jar of stemless maraschino cherries and one half the liquid. Cut limes in half and squeeze juice into mixture. Stir everything together and serve.
—Courtesy Lauren R. Good, Memphis, Tennessee
Periwinkle Lattimore’s Tomato Aspic with Cream Cheese
Ingredients you will need for tomato aspic liquid:
2 cups tomato juice (or V8 juice)
½ cup chopped onion
2 chopped celery ribs
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
¼ cup cold water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Dash of hot pepper sauce
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Boil tomato juice, onion, and celery for about twenty minutes, or until veggies are tender; drain tomato juice and set aside. Soften gelatin in 1/4 cup cold water and add to tomato juice; then add lemon juice, pepper sauce, and Worcestershire sauce.
Ingredients you will need for cream cheese filling:
8 ounces cream cheese
2 tablespoons mayo
1 teaspoon grated onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Paprika (optional)
Make small balls of filling ingredients; put at the bottom of individual molds or at the bottom of a casserole dish and cut into squares. Pour tomato aspic liquid over the cheese balls; after everything has congealed, serve chilled. For additional flavor, top with dollop of mayo and sprinkle paprika over that for color.
—Courtesy Mrs. Rose Williams Turner, Natchez, Mississippi
Maura Beth Mayhew’s Chocolate, Cherry Cola Sheet Cake
Ingredients you will need for the batter:
2 cups flour
Dash of salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup any cola beverage
cup oil
1 stick butter
3 tablespoons dry cocoa
½ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons maraschino cherry liquid
1 jar of finely chopped maraschino cherries
2 eggs
Mix flour, salt, and sugar in bowl. In separate pan, bring to a boil the cola drink, oil, butter, and cocoa. Add hot liquid to the bowl and beat heavily; then add buttermilk, baking soda, vanilla, cherry liquid, cherries, and eggs and continue beating. When well mixed, pour into sheet cake pan sprayed with nonstick spray and bake for twenty-five minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Ingredients you will need for the icing:
1 stick butter
3 tablespoons cocoa
6 tablespoons whole milk
3 tablespoons maraschino cherry liquid
1 pound confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup finely chopped pecans
Heat the butter, cocoa, and milk until the butter has liquefied; add the remaining ingredients and beat well. Pour icing onto cake while it is hot or still warm for ease of spreading; cut when cake has cooled.
—Courtesy Marion A. Good, Oxford, Mississippi
Mr. Parker Place’s Lemon/Lime Icebox Pie
Ingredients you will need for the crust:
1 7.05-oz box of Carr’s Ginger Lemon Creme Tea Cookies
2 tablespoons of butter or margarine
Empty box of Carr’s Ginger Lemon Creme Tea Cookies into food processor and pulse until crumb consistency is reached; or, empty box of cookies into Ziploc bag and pound/roll with rolling pin until crumb consistency is reached.
Pour crumb mixture into a 9-inch aluminum-foil pie pan; melt better and then drizzle into crumb mixture; mold mixture into crust, adhering to pie pan; set aside.
Ingredients you will need for the filling:
1 can fat-free condensed milk
3 eggs
4 limes or 4 lemons
Note: Using limes will give the pie a tarter taste; using lemons will give it a sweeter taste.
Pour can of condensed milk into large mixing bowl. Crack three medium eggs and separate yolks from whites (if you wish to save whites for omelets, etc., do so; otherwise, discard). Put yolks into condensed milk and stir thoroughly until blended.
Juice four limes or four lemons (do not use reconstituted lemon or lime juice); add juice into condensed milk–egg mixture in small portions and mix in thoroughly each time until all juice has been added and blended.
Pour mixture into pie pan and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about twenty-five minutes; overbaking will make the texture of the filling mealy. Cool before cutting and serving. Serve at room temperature or chilled. Serves up to six.
—Mr. Parker Place (Joe Sam Bedloe, Cherico, Mississippi)
And finally: Stout Fella’s Instructions for “Islanding” Ice Cream
Ingredients you will need:
1 tablespoon (fresh and hot from being cleaned in the dish- washer, if possible; if not, blow on metal until warm)
1 gallon of previously untouched, unopened ice cream, any flavor
Take ice cream out of freezer, put it on counter, and yell at it to hurry up and soften just a tad bit. Open the hatch or the top and begin testing the edges; start scraping on all four sides; keep going deeper until you have reached the bottom and created an “island,” or your wife comes in and screams at you to “Stop, you’ll spoil your appetite for dinner!” whichever comes first; repeat, if she goes away, and rinse (the spoon).
—Courtesy Justin Rawlings “Stout Fella” Brachle,
Cherico, Mississippi
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE CHERRY COLA BOOK CLUB
Ashton Lee
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance
your group’s reading of Ashton Lee’s
The Cherry Cola Book Club.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the female character who fascinate
s you the most, and give the pros and cons of her personality.
2. Discuss the male character who fascinates you the most, and give the pros and cons of his personality.
3. Assign someone to argue for The Cherico Library’s existence against someone else who supports the City Council’s point of view for its dissolution. Let the group decide who won the argument.
4. Does Cherico reflect some of the economic and cultural realities of your hometown?
5. Which of the couples most resembles your relationship with your spouse or significant other: Becca and Stout Fella; Miss Voncille and Locke Linwood; Douglas and Connie?
6. The character of Pamela Linwood, though deceased, plays an important role in the plot. How do each of you view that role?
7. What has your local library meant to you?
8. Over the long haul, do you think Maura Beth Mayhew is fighting a losing battle?
9. Do you think taxpayers in general have a realistic view of what it takes to keep a library up and running?
10. Do you think library services should fall into the same category for funding as firefighting, police protection, streets, water and utilities?
11. Did you ever make the sort of wish/bucket list that Maura Beth Mayhew made on page twenty-five of her journal (Three Things to Accomplish Before I’m Thirty)?
12. Pretend you are a female member of The Cherry Cola Book Club. Do you fall into the Scarlett or the Melanie category as a modern woman?
13. Pretend you are a member (either gender) of The Cherry Cola Book Club. What role do you think To Kill a Mockingbird played in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, if any?
14. There will be a sequel to The Cherry Cola Book Club. What do you hope will happen in that book?
15. What is your favorite sequence in The Cherry Cola Book Club?
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2013 by Ashton Lee
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-7341-3