Meet journalist Anne Hart, writing full-time freelance as an independent journalist since June 17, 1959, celebrating more than 50 years of being an independent journalist, novelist, and author of 91 paperback books emphasizing the realities of the lives of senior citizens, nutrition, and health trends. See a list of some of her 91 published books at one of the publisher’s sites.
Some of her 91 paperback titles include 101+ Practical Ways to Raise Funds, the nonfiction book, Diet Fads, Careers & Controversies in Nutrition Journalism. Looking to be a science or medical writer? See the book, 101 Ways to Find Six-Figure Medical or Popular Ghostwriting Jobs & Clients, 30+ Brain-Exercising Creativity Coach Businesses to Open. Want fiction? Then read the medieval historical time-travel novel, Adventures in my beloved medieval Alania and Beyond. Interested in family history newsletters? Then see the nonfiction how-to paperback book, Creating Family Newsletters & Time Capsules, Also see the paperback novel and collection of stories under one cover, Dogs with Careers: Ten Happy-Ending Stories of Purpose and Passion. And browse the paperback book, Who’s Buying Which Popular Short Fiction Now, & What Are They Paying?
Looking for Anne Hart’s food, health, and behavior-related nonfiction articles collected in a paperback book? Check out Neurotechnology with Culinary Memoirs from the Daily Nutrition & Health Reporter. Some creativity-enhancing books include, 30+ Brain-Exercising Creativity Coach Businesses to Open. Or browse, How to Launch a Genealogy TV Business Online. See the book on how to write plays, Ethno-Playography. Browse the paperback book, How to Start, Teach, & Franchise a Creative Genealogy Writing Class or Club. Looking for nonfiction? See, the paperback book, Employment Personality Tests Decoded (published by Career Press). It’s about designing and taking various types of employment tests. Want to produce videos such as documentaries or films and write the scripts? See Anne Hart’s book, Writing, Financing, & Producing Documentaries.
Looking for fiction? Also see novels, Astronauts and Their Cats, and the novel, How to Start Engaging Conversations on Women’s, Men’s, or Family Studies with Wealthy Strangers. See the novel, Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome. Want more creativity enhancement and writing assessments motivating and inspiring your creativity–for writers? See, Do You Have the Aptitude & Personality to Be A Popular Author?
Anne Hart earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, emphasizing writing the novel, fiction writing and professional writing before starting a full-time career writing novels, plays, poems, and science writing. College minors were in psychology and anthropology. Many of her novels are for young readers focusing on adventure and historical time-travel stories. Nonfiction books include how-to books on nutrition, genetics, health trends, and behavior.
The author also taught university level classes since 1972 part time while spending more than eight hours daily writing novels, how-to books, plays, and scripts. Some of her novels include fiction titles such as Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome and Dogs with Careers. Want a suspense novel with humor? Read Anne Hart’s novel, Murder in the Women’s Studies Department.”
Hart has written more than 2,000 articles and nonfiction books such as Neurotechnology and Culinary Memoirs and books on DNA-driven genealogy, including how to start and teach classes in family history. She also has a frequent column on cooking one-pan meals and specializes in finding healthier ingredients for various foods, for example chia seeds for starch in puddings and eating snacks of nuts and seeds instead of chips.
Check out some of her how-to videos on uTube on topics ranging from foods to DNA-driven genealogy research. Hart also is the mother to two children pushing age 50 and is the grandmother of nine children, including several medical students.
Since 1959, Hart has been writing daily at least six days a week, either stories, novels, how-to books, informational articles, and plays, poems, or scripts. She retired from part-time university teaching creative writing courses in 2002 and now spends her days writing articles “to make the world a kinder, gentler, and healthier place.”
Anne Hart’s hobby is writing about and cooking historical, sometimes ancient or medieval recipes, as long as they have health merit, such as 15th century style meals with spices. Anne Hart frequently writes in her columns about cooking such as favorite Renaissance-era meals. For example, here is one recipe you might serve for a spiced apple snack–in small portions.
Spicy Apple Lasagna
Spice is king in making cheese and fruit lasagna the way it had been served in 1492. Here’s one way to use those healthy autumn snacking apples on Columbus Day. Prepare a 1492 Catalunian-Italian-Spanish-style apple lasagna according to a recipe frequently used throughout Europe in 1492. Perhaps the familiar, hearty cool weather main meal probably had been eaten by Columbus or his peers throughout Northern Italy, Catalunia, and the Barcelona area of Spain.
The meal usually is prepared with apples, golden raisins, pine nuts, cinnamon, figs, and cheese layered between baked lasagna noodles. It’s a medieval version combining cheese lasagna layered with baked fruit and nuts. In modern times, you’ll probably find this dish has moved to Southern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia. Here’s how to make it for Columbus Day. The recipe feeds a big family or a Columbus Day dinner party.
Spiced Apple Cheese Lasagna with Pignola Nuts
10 sheets of broad noodles (lasagna)
7 1/2 cups of water, vegetable stock, or chicken stock in which to boil the lasagna pasta until al dente tender
pinch of ground cardamom
pinch of ground cinnamon
pinch of white pepper
1/2 cup of pine nuts (pignola nuts) slightly browned in olive oil. If pine nuts cost too much for your budget, substitute lightly browned hulled sunflower seeds instead.
pinch of ground cloves
oil for greasing the lasagna pan
5 sliced, peeled apples
6 to 8 ounces of grated hard cheese such as Cheddar, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Swiss, or any other hard cheese that melts well.
Square or oblong lasagna pan that supports three layers of pasta layered with cheese and sliced apples.
Bring the water or stock to a boil, and boil the lasagna until it’s al dente tender. You can cook the pasta in three or four batches so it doesn’t stick together.
Boil the sliced apples and golden raisins and any other dried fruit you want to add just as chopped figs, for a minute in heated water until they are tender to chew, but not overcooked. Drain in a strainer. Toss the apples together with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, white pepper, golden raisins, and slightly browned pignola nuts or slightly browned in oil sunflower seeds. The cooked apples should be coated with the spices, cooked raisins, and nuts.
Remove the sheets of lasagna with tongs. Put the lasagna sheets on a damp, clean towel or parchment paper on a flat surface. Lay the lasagna flat side by side.
Oil the inside of your lasagna pan with olive oil or any other kind of oil or butter you choose. On the bottom of the pan, you’ll sprinkle your mixture of spices and about 1/4 of your cheese. You can mix several types of cheese such as grated cheddar, parmesan, mozzarella, or any other combination of cheeses or just use one type of hard cheese, according to your preferences in cheese tastes. The cheese should melt well and be a hard cheese.
Cover the cheese and mixture of spices with a layer of pasta. Trim the pasta to fit the dish, if necessary. Repeat the layers of spice. But this time add the apples mixed with the raisins, spices, and lightly browned pine nuts on the bottom and the cheese on top. Keep repeating the layers of spice, apples and raisins with pignola nuts or sunflower seeds, cheese on top of the apples, and pasta twice.
End your top layer with a layer of spice and apples with cheese on the top of the apples. Now that everything is layered in the pan. Put the meal in the oven and heat it once more until it’s comfortably hot to taste. Your outcome should be a lasagna made up of melted hard cheese on top of tender, cooked sliced, peeled apples that have been tossed in spices, golden raisins, and pine nuts or sunflower seeds. Serve warm. Serves six.
This traditional 15th-century feast has a hint of the Moorish influence in Spain and southern Italy. It’s Catalunian and Northern Italian in nature, though, by the late 15th century, when the spice trade brought new influences to cooking, and lasagna since the days of Marco Polo influenced the art of mixing lasagna dishes as well as rice-based dishes with nuts and spices, particularly pignola or pine nuts that usually are fried in oil until slightly browned and added to rice dishes or lasagna, and especially served with meat-based meals.
Raisins often were seasoned with spices and served in pomegranate or cherry and raisin sauces poured over meats, especially in the Mediterranean areas where the pomegranates grew. In areas where there were no pomegranates, cherries and raisins were turned into a sauce and drizzled on poultry or meat dishes.
For numerous medieval recipes made with modern ingredients, check out an excellent book, The Medieval Cookbook, by Maggie Black. This book also features another cheddar cheese lasagna recipe but without the apples and nuts. The book also features wonderful recipes from the 14th and 15th centuries including recipes for fried fig pastries, cream custard tarts, and mushroom pasties from Northern Europe, especially England and France.
For a change of venue, try some 15th century European recipes made with modern ingredients for your holiday season. Or if you’re looking for some recipes for Columbus Day from the 1492 era, also check out the following Renaissance era cookbooks for recipes of that era you can make with modern ingredients.
Resources
Renaissance Cookbook: Historical Perspectives through Cookery by Berengario. DELLE CINQUETERRE ( Hardcover – Jan 1, 1975)
The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (The Food Series) by Ken Albala ( Hardcover – Mar 19, 2007)
Eating Right in the Renaissance by Ken Albala ( Hardcover – Feb 1, 2002)
Three Rivers Renaissance: Cookbook IV ( Hardcover – Jun 30, 2000)
The Renaissance Cookbook by Various ( Paperback – 1980)