Earlier this year, I purchased a delightful cookbook full of recipes inspired by meals in literature. I've been baking with The Book Lover's Cookbook a lot over the break, especially sweet things to take with tea. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I've found that making the same food my favorite characters had resulted in a greater sense of intimacy with them.

For instance, if you're familiar with L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, you may recall that in Chapter 21 ("A New Departure in Flavorings"), Anne Shirley attempts to make a cake for some visiting friends, and accidentally puts anodyne liniment in the cake instead of vanilla, which her guests manfully and womanfully consume without a comment.

When I tried out the recipe–which, helpfully noted that anodyne liniment was not necessary–I too had difficulties, because I'm still learning to gauge how things work in the kitchen. The bottom of the cake was burnt to a crisp like a vampire in a tanning bed, and the "Creamy Butter Frosting" I whipped up was probably too watery. But hey! The two-thirds of the cake that were edible were actually pretty okay, and I learned some stuff about oven timers for the future.

I felt a kinship with one of my favorite characters, though we're divided by roughly 131 years. Sharing food reifies connections across and throughout time and space. It seems delightful for some reason that this little, benign morsel of the past, translated into a constellation of meaning for millions in a beloved novel, could solidify in the present with the help of a few measuring cups.