Month: November 2018

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Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Grateful

Hello to everybody and happy Monday, again! For those whom are new to this site, let me introduce myself – I am Laura (Pitzer) Emerich and my mom is Gloria Pitzer, the ORIGINAL Secret Recipe Detective! I started this blog in September of this year to celebrate my mom’s legacy.

Mom’s 1983 cookbook’s back-cover, as found on page 316 of her last book – “Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective” [published by Balboa Press (January 2018, 1st Printing) – a re-write by me, Laura Emerich, of Mom’s famous, self-published book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook” (May 1983, 3rd Printing).]

She was such a tremendous trail-blazer! Mom was the first one, starting back in the early 70’s, to discover ways for making your favorite restaurant & fast food dishes, as well as many grocery products, right in the comfort of your own home and she also found a way to share those “secrets” about which many companies wanted to keep her hushed. But the funny thing is, if she had actually “discovered” their real “secret” recipes, then it was purely by accident because Mom didn’t really KNOW any of their actual recipes unless they happened to share them with her (and only a few did so.) However, she could figure out the basics of any dish and tweak it to the specific flavors of a specific maker’s dish or product in order to imitate it! As Mom would always say, “I do with recipes what Rich Little does with voices!” She was the original pioneer of the “make-alike”, “copycat”, “eating out at home” and “homemade groceries” movements.

Besides her writing, cooking and artistic talents, Mom was a very devout Christian. No matter what problems and struggles were thrown into her path, she never lost her faith and she always found something in it by which to learn and be grateful. She often wrote about it (faith) in her cookbooks and newsletters, to simply share with and inspire others. Mom thought good cookbooks should feed the mind and soul, as well as the body; and that’s how she always wrote her books and newsletters – with “Food for Thought” editorials and quips, as well as some product or company history, little-known-facts and tidbits of information, as they related to certain recipes.

Photo by Paul Jaekel, January 2016, at Mom’s 80th birthday party (Marysville, MI)

Last week was my first Thanksgiving without Mom here. It was a bitter-sweet experience. I miss her so much, but I’m also at peace and happy that she is with my dad now. He passed away over three years before Mom; and they were heart-wrenching days, weeks, months and years for her to be without him. They were together for 60 years – day in and day out – especially, after Mom started her “Secret Recipes” business and Dad left his employer to manage the business end of things for Mom, while she handled the creative and promotional end. Still, in those 39 months without Dad, Mom never lost faith that they’d, someday, be together again and that it was not for her to know why, how or when – only that it will be.

I am so grateful for everything Mom has given me and taught me in my life-time with her. As the last of the Thanksgiving left-overs disappear and we gear down for the final holiday shopping push – such as on this popular and ever-growing “Cyber Monday” extravaganza – I can only hope that everyone remembers those things for which they were giving thanks just a few days ago, as they gathered around the turkey laden table with family and/or friends, and that they are not letting the commercialism of the up-coming holidays interfere with those heart-felt thoughts of gratefulness. I think that gratitude is the simplest and purest gift that you can give anyone at any time – a smile and a “thank you” can go a long way – even for those whom we’ve perceived to have done us wrong in some way, we can be grateful for the learning experiences that are derived from the struggles we faced.

“Grateful for the Struggles” –

Sometimes, just for a moment – other times, for much longer. Nonetheless, we have to deal with each struggle as it arises. We don’t analyze what’s going on. We don’t blame other people for our pain. We don’t justify our fears, today, by regretting what took place in the past. We’re dealing with our attitude right now – right where we are in the present moment. We don’t worry about what will or won’t occur in the future. We are capable of making some good decisions when we are called on to make them. Whether we did or not in the past is the past. We’re not the same person, today, we were then. We’re not even the same person we were yesterday, but we are learning lessons all of the time. Melody Beattie [The Language of Letting Go] says, “Our past is a series of lessons that advance us to higher levels of living and of loving.” – Gloria Pitzer [The Recipe Detective ™ Secret Recipes Newsletter, Issue 218, November 2000; page 2]

Mom was always grateful for her “readers”, “listeners” and “fans” who kept her inspired with their requests to find the “secrets” to making this dish or that grocery product at home (and at less cost.) She was also very grateful to all the media sources (newspapers and magazines, as well as radio and TV talk shows) that interviewed, wrote and talked about her imprints in the food industry, especially in the “fast food” area. She was also grateful to us, her family, for supporting and helping her in so many different ways – as office, art and promotional assistants; as well as recipe and taste testers – but also including staying out of her hair when need be.

How the Trail-Blazing Began

Mom wrote the following editorial [found on page 24 of “My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop”, written and self-published by Gloria Pitzer, Dec. 1989] about her humble beginnings with recipe requests and popular fast-food make-alike dishes:

It was [in the early 70’s] while I was writing for the Pt. Huron Times Herald that I was asked to do the food page column…and found myself answering a stack of readers’ mail. The first question I came to really launched what was to become “Secret Recipes”. A reader wanted to know “how to make the sauce like ‘a place’ called McDonald’s puts on their double-decker hamburgers.”

“A place called McDonald’s” meant a drive into the city, where this place, then, only had one arch. A sample of their “secret sauce” turned out to be a very good Thousand Island dressing, not unlike what Bob’s Big Boy [later known as the Elias Brothers’ Big Boy] was already using on their double-decker. After a few taste tests at home, the family agreed that we had come pretty close to their sauce, and so I included my version of their product in my food column along with a few other tidbits. The response from readers was so gratifying that the editor was only too happy to have me continue along this path for several weeks to come. Each week, I took another famous place, similar to McDonald’s, and tried to recreate a dish at home that would come close to what the restaurant called a “secret recipe”.

I was doing just fine until the week I decided to do a cheesecake recipe – the one that “nobody doesn’t like”. Well, those wonderful people had just bought a whole page of advertising in that week’s food section, and they thought it was not only ungrateful, but down-right rude of us to run a recipe for a product that was supposed to be just like theirs. I could see their point. The editor was beside himself with worry and immediately told me to drop the column!

I thought ahead to the time when we could, as Colton once said, “flatter them with the sincerity of imitation”, but they were hardly flattered. I wanted to talk with the advertisers and try to work out something that w-o-u-l-d flatter them and their product, but the editor would not hear of it. He told me to go back to the old way of doing the food column…OR…I could pick up my check. Well, I was so sure that the recipe imitation idea would work, if not with his paper, with somebody else’s that I told him to “mail it to me!” And I went home to eventually start my o-w-n paper – what is now our “Secret Recipes Newsletter”, and as the events leading up to and beyond developed, step-by-step, the learning experiences contributed beautifully to the outcome.

This is the make-alike version of McDonald’s famous Big Mac Sauce that Mom developed for making at home, which she called “The Big Match Special Sauce”, including the introductory back-story, as seen on page 11 of her last book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective” [published by Balboa Press (January 2018, 1st Printing) – a re-write by me, Laura Emerich, of Mom’s famous, self-published book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook” (May 1983, 3rd Printing)]; as well as being on Mom’s free recipes and information sheets, asking only for proper credit if you care to share it. The 8.25×11-inch, “Perfect Bound Softcover”, 322-page cookbook (also available as an eBook ) was published in January 2018 and can be purchased here: https://www.balboapress.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001062252 (ISBN: 9781504391214.)

   WE CAN’T TALK ABOUT HAMBURGERS without talking about the most successful of the fast food chains – McDonald’s! It’s the only company in the fast food industry that has succeeded in cornering the market on family food and fast service restaurants – the world over! McDonald’s was the trend-setter; the hometown hospitality example in the industry. They took meat and potatoes and turned it into a billion-dollar enterprise.

   Hamburgers, French fries and milkshakes were making their menu debut at “drive-in” restaurants, where car hops took your orders and returned with trays of food that hooked on to the window of your car. Kids cruised these places in their parents’ Edsel, Hudson and Kaiser-Fraser sedans back then. Hamburger “joints” were less than desirable to most people who appreciated good food and a pleasant dining-out experience. But these drive-ins had one interesting thing in common that appealed to the public – they were AFFORDABLE!

   It was 1954 and Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, was 52 years old. Hardly the time in one’s life when they’d start to think about launching a new enterprise, but rather a time when most began to think about retiring! On one of his sales trips, Ray Kroc, a Dixie Cup salesman, met the owners of a thriving hamburger restaurant in California. Eventually, Kroc purchased the business from Maurice (Mac) McDonald and his brother, Richard. Mac & Dick had a fetish for cleanliness. Their place in San Bernardino was spotless! And much like Ray Kroc in his own experience years later, they weren’t too keen about teenagers. They avoided catering to the teenage market exclusively because kids loitered, were noisy and threw food around. The McDonald’s concept was for “the family!” McDonald’s wasn’t the first company to create a fast food concept; but, by far, it was the most recognized and the most profitable in the industry. While fast food has taken it on the chin for every conceivable infraction of culinary achievement that the critics could possibly contrive, McDonald’s still came out on top!

   THE BIG MATCH ATTACH – This is the double-decked, at-home-hamburger recipe that promises you will shock the socks off everyone who tries your improvisation of the famous “Golden Arch’s” very own “Big Mac”.

   All you need for one ‘Big Match’ is: 2 all beef patties, “Special Sauce”, lettuce, cheese, onions, pickles & 2 sesame seed buns. Sear both sides of the 2 patties in a bit of oil on a hot griddle, cooking to medium-well. Place each patty on the 2 bottom halves of the buns. To each of these, add a tablespoon of Special Sauce (see below), lettuce, cheese, onions and pickles to taste. Assemble one atop the other and add one of the bun tops to the top of that. Serve at once to anyone having a Big Match Attach!

THE BIG MATCH SPECIAL SAUCE

1 cup Miracle Whip Salad Dressing

1/3 cup creamy French dressing

¼ cup sweet pickle relish

1 tablespoon sugar

¼ teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon dry, minced onions

   In a small mixing bowl, stir all ingredients together with a spoon, as listed. Makes 2-cups sauce. Keeps up to a week or so if refrigerated & well-covered. Do not freeze this.

The version pictured below is from Mom’s “Free Recipes/Information” sheet (2000), asking only for proper credit if you care to share it.

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Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Recipes and Radio

Happy Monday, Everyone! According to the Foodie Holiday Calendar at OCFoodies.com, today, which is November 19th, is “Carbonated Beverage with Caffeine Day”! Being a Michigander, I grew up on some wonderful, Michigan-made, carbonated beverage products like Vernors Ginger Ale and Faygo Pop. We (Michiganders) call it “pop”; while, it seems, everyone else calls it “soda”. No matter what you call it, add a few scoops of ice cream to it and you have a delicious concoction that some call a “cooler”; while, others call it a “float”.

For those who don’t know me yet, I am Laura Emerich and my mom is Gloria Pitzer, the ORIGINAL “Secret Recipe Detective”. I remember Mom running test after test, for weeks on end, trying to develop her own homemade version of cola because of requests from her “listeners” (the radio audiences, listening to her many different radio talk-show “appearances” across the country). She was often asked by the listeners, who called into the studios of the shows on which she was interviewed, what products or dishes there were that she couldn’t replicate. She often answered, “Cool Whip and Coca-Cola”. I always thought, myself, that it was not that she couldn’t replicate them, but that she hadn’t…yet!

Gloria Pitzer, Recipe Detective

Most of the thousands of make-alike recipes that Mom developed were inspired by “listener” requests. Sometimes she could develop a close make-alike version simply by taste tests. Other times, all she had to go on was a description of the product or dish from the requester. Sometimes Mom could develop a make-alike version of some product or dish in a matter of minutes or hours; sometimes, it took a few days or weeks. Sometimes, if it was an extra-challenging recipe, she’d even “shelve” it for a little while and come back to it with a fresh, new perspective; but Mom never gave up on a challenge!

In fact, Mom decided she was going to face “the Coke challenge”, so to speak, and discover a homemade version of cola. The challenge was on and Mom loved a great challenge! She persistently tested different combinations of ingredients to develop a syrup she could add to Club Soda for homemade soda pop. Making over 100 tests in about a six-week period, Mom finally developed a syrup for a close make-alike version of Coke-a-Cola, which she called “Close-a-Cola”. She also developed a syrup for a make-alike version of Vernors Gingerale (or ginger soda), a Michigan-made product, which she called “Veneers Gingerale”. In fact, in the early 70’s, it was through radio and the “listeners” that Mom was initially called the “Recipe Detective” and she further developed that into her “Secret Recipe Detective” identity.

Mom wrote the following editorial [found on pages 54-55 of “My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop”, written and self-published by Gloria Pitzer, Dec. 1989] about her relationship with radio and recipe requests:

Radio and Bob Allison’s ‘Ask Your Neighbors!’

RADIO turned out to be the most appropriate way by which we made people aware of what we were doing…my involvement with the wonderful world of radio actually came about without any specific intention of becoming a regular part of the broadcasting field… I didn’t know I had what is considered “a radio voice”. Heaven knows our five kids will, to this day, even in their adulthood, testify to the fact that, on occasion, during their up-bringing, I had been known to discover conditions that would prompt me to accelerate, vocally, in a pitch that only dogs in the next county could here!

My introduction to radio began with Bob Allison and [the] “Ask Your Neighbor” show. I was folding diapers at the kitchen table, waiting for my favorite daily segment of “My True Story” to come on the air when, instead, WWJ [a Detroit area radio station] announced that it had been replaced with a n-e-w show. This new show turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me…almost every Monday morning I [would] visit with Bob Allison and his neighbors… [NOTE: now heard Monday through Friday from 9AM to 11AM EST on WNZK 690AM, Detroit. A live stream can also be found on the show’s website at http://www.askyourneighbor.com/index.htm]

Neighbors

When “My True Story” was replaced by Bob Allison and his “Ask Your Neighbor” show was replaced by Bob Allison and his “Ask Your Neighbor” show… I was, at first, very disappointed. Household hints and problems around the house that you cannot solve yourself seemed like just too much homemaking information to please me. I soon, however, became ‘hooked’ on the show, as almost everybody does, to the point that, on Fridays, when Bob would sign off and say he would talk to us again on Monday, I was spending the weekends just looking forward to the show on Monday.

I called the show about 2 or 3 times a month for the first year or two, to ask questions of Bob’s “neighbors” that my newspaper column readers were asking me. When I couldn’t find the answer from consulting other sources, I knew I could rely on Bob Allison’s “neighbors” to come up with the right answers for me. In return, I would often…phone in an answer that I occasionally had in reply to one of their questions or recipe requests. Bob did not recognize my voice as a regular caller until I had initiated the newsletter, however. He asked me where the [hamburger sauce] recipe came from that I was giving, in reply to one of his listener’s requests, which is how his program has always worked…In mentioning that the hamburger sauce recipe would appear in the next issue of my monthly newsletter, which I had given in response to one of his listeners’ previous requests, Bob reacted with great interest and curiosity.

“You have a newsletter, do you?” He asked. “Well, tell us about it and how much it is and where our neighbors can get it.”

That was all it took to get us well-acquainted with Bob’s “neighbors” and, in no time at all, our subscription orders went from a few to many. Sight-unseen was hardly appropriate to ask people to buy a publication that they could not first examine. So, I spent all of one day and most of the next, thinking about and trying out a single page description with a few sample recipes from the publication that I could send out to interested and prospective subscribers…

Mom used the same procedure for advertising or “getting the word out” about her “secret” make-alike recipes and publications until she, finally, fully retired and it always worked very well for her business, offering 15-20 sample recipes along with information for ordering her current, self-published cookbooks and newsletter subscription in exchange for a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Those are the recipes from which I’ve been choosing to work in with my “…Memories of my Mom” and to “re-share” with you.

On page 264 of Mom’s last book – “Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective” [published by Balboa Press (January 2018, 1st Printing) – a re-write by me, Laura Emerich, of Mom’s famous, self-published book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook” (May 1983, 3rd Printing)], asking only for proper credit if you care to share it – is this 1983, make-alike version of Orange Julius or, as Mom comically called it, “Orange Brutus”:

Blend together until smooth, 3 c. orange juice with 1 envelope “Dream Whip” powder, ½ teaspoon vanilla and 3 small boxes (¾-ounce each) instant vanilla pudding powder. Pour into ½-gallon pitcher and stir in 3 more cups orange juice. Makes 6 lovely drinks when served over cracked ice!

The 8.25×11-inch, “Perfect Bound Softcover”, 322-page cookbook (also available as an eBook at https://www.balboapress.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001062253) was published in January 2018 and can be purchased here: https://www.balboapress.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001062252 (ISBN: 9781504391214.)

This photo is of Mom’s updated Orange Julius make-alike version, using club soda for carbonation and with the name altered to “Orange Judas”, as seen on her “free recipes and information” sheet (2000):

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Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Time to Make the Cookies

Happy holidays everyone! They are really creeping up fast! Thanksgiving is only 10 days away!!! Before we know it, it’ll be the Advent, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve – and then a whole new year will be upon us!

This was always the time for Mom to start baking like a “mad woman”, stock-piling and freezing dozens upon dozens of cookies, fudge and candy confections for gifts and entertaining.

Gloria Pitzer, Recipe Detective

There are so many different types of cookies – as they say, ‘more than Carter has pills!’ Sometimes they’re called “biscuits” or “bars” or “squares”. Some are baked in an oven – and even that fluctuates between hard, soft or chewy – while others are set in the refrigerator or freezer.

Cookies use an array of ingredients including, but not limited to: butter, eggs, oil, peanut butter; plus, various sugars, flours, oats, spices and cocoas/chocolates. Many optional additions include coconut, peanuts, various nuts, candies, baking chips, raisins and many types of dried fruits. Some cookies are frosted or coated in some type of sugar. Mom even developed a cookie recipe a long time ago (as seen at the end of this blog), mixing dry cake and pudding mixes together with mayonnaise!!!

One of my earliest memories, from when I first started going to school, was of being afraid that no one would like me and that I wouldn’t have any friends. Mom gave me a lunch sack full of cookies and told me “the quickest way to their hearts is through their stomachs” and, if I shared the cookies with the other kids, I would surely make friends. It worked! In later years, it worked just as well to help my own kids “break the ice” and make new friends!

There’s no doubt that cookies make people feel good. They are often used as a reward for children, as well as adults, doing good deeds and using good manners, among many other things. Cookies can put a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy day like nothing else can. There was a time, when my youngest child was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. She was withdrawn and anti-social, rarely smiled or showed any kind of emotion – but, mom could always pull her out of her shell, somewhat, with cookies! They were one of the few things that made her genuinely smile.

The following is Mom’s 1983 composition on the subject of “Cookies and Candies”, written for that particular chapter in her book, “The Better Cookery Cookbook”, plus her 1983 make-alike version of the Famous Amos cookies, which appear on pages 214-215 in her last book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective” [published by Balboa Press (January 2018, 1st Printing) – a re-write by me, Laura Emerich, of Mom’s self-published book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook” (May 1983, 3rd Printing)], asking only for proper credit if you care to share it.

   COOKIES AND CANDIES really bring out the little child within us all. There is something almost rewarding about simple confections that the food industry has also been able to capitalize on the products of this division with great marketing success. The 1st bakery marketing efforts in the American frontier days included delicacies of French origin, Danish breads and cakes, Austrian strudel and pies of truly colonial persuasion. The candies, which were originally for special religious observances, have been taken into the fold of a prospering industry and have continued, despite repercussions of the critics, skepticism of sugar and artificial sweeteners, to please the public… 

…When I compiled my favorite cookie and candy recipes for this section, I was really torn between what to keep and what to leave out. I wanted to share with you every single wonderful memory of a pleasing product, you could hopefully imitate in your own kitchen, as a compliment to the original… 

…In cookie-baking, the spirit of ‘reward’ is still there, as it was when we were youngsters, and remains a tradition – we will always find a place and a reason for having a cookie jar in the kitchen… 

…Years ago, when our 5 children were still in the sandbox set, holding tricycle symposiums in my flowerbeds and declaring our yard a national park for every child in the township, I had this ridiculous maternal notion that a cookie could cure countless conditions. So, I was wrong! Cookies did not remedy a Barbie doll with a missing string in her back or a G.I. Joe without a backpack in the ‘complete accessory kit’, as promised in the catalog. But, special cookies from a warm and sunny, semi-cluttered kitchen, did take the ‘bite’ out of a scraped knee and the ‘owie’ out of a bump on the head – and even though it wouldn’t bring the pet turtle back to life, a cookie and a kiss from Mom made the world seem a little bit brighter. I doubt that things have changed very much with mothers and their children since my own grew up… Even now…they all check the cookie jar with the same delight as they expressed when they were youngsters.

Illustration by Gloria Pitzer

FAMOUS NAMELESS CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

   My original version had a dozen ingredients. Look at how I shortened it! Still, the results are identical! An interesting note on the popularity of these cookies… A few years ago, [around 1980], I received a letter from Dr. Joyce Brothers, in which this was the only recipe she requested. I sent her the longer, from-scratch version. I hope she has a chance to try this version. One thing I noted about the original cookie is that it has a “sugary” consistency to it. It’s almost like a confection. When Amos, himself, was interviewed in Family Circle magazine a few years ago, he offered them the recipe for making his kind of cookie at home. I tried that recipe 3 times and it was NOT one bit like his famous cookies. To be like his product, the cookie must be firm, a little crisp, but not dry, and have a definite brown-sugar-flavor and crunchy-texture to it. You can add chopped raisins to the finished batter and you can double the chocolate chips – but do be sure, if you are imitating the original product, that you include some pecan halves, as well as chopped pecans, for these really ‘make’ the cookie!

18-ounce box yellow cake mix

2 boxes (3 ¾ ounces each) butterscotch pudding powder (NOT instant)

1 ¼ cups mayonnaise

12-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips

4-ounce package each: walnut chips and pecan halves

   Mix the dry pudding powder with the dry cake mix in a roomy bowl. Combine thoroughly, using a slotted spoon or large meat fork. Then, mix in the mayonnaise; but, don’t use an electric mixer! When well-blended, add the chips and nuts. Drop by rounded spoonful, 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 14 minutes at 350°F. It’s important to permit the cookies to cool at least 2 minutes on the baking sheet before moving them, carefully, to paper towels to continue cooling. These are very fragile while warm but tend to firm-up while cooling. Makes 4 ½ dozen. Keep at room temperature in a tightly covered container for up to a month! They freeze poorly. Note: If weather is very humid, you’ll note that these become quite limp if they stand out, uncovered, for any length of time. If you store the cooled, firm cookies in an airtight container they should remain crisp despite humid weather.

In February 1988, Mom appeared on The Home Show and they surprised her with an in-person visit from Wally Amos (Famous Amos Cookies), himself. I really wish I could find an actual recording of that show! Mom said he was such a nice man and really loved her version of his product – but made her promise to never go into the cookie business! The following is Mom’s updated make-alike version of the Famous Amos Cookies, from her time on The Home Show, as it appeared on her “Free Recipes & Information” sheet (2000) with an additional “Turtle Sundae Cookies” variation:

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Recess Peanut Butter Cups, a Make-Alike Version of Reeses

Recess Peanut Butter Cups

By Gloria Pitzer, from Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; May 1982)

The development of this recipe grew from a request made by a local group of parents whose children followed the Feingold diet to arrest hyperactivity. It became one of my most popular recipes across the country – and when I heard from the people at Hershey’s, in Pennsylvania, they were quite upset with my having such a recipe. I assured them that the name ‘Recess’ was drawn from the dictionary definition of the word, meaning ‘a hidden or secret place’ – quite in keeping with the theme of my series. And, because Hershey’s makes the famous product by a similar name (of which there are many in various industries, such as Goodyear and Goodrich both making tires), naturally, I recommended using Hershey’s chocolate in this recipe. I have had recipes sent to me by those who also try to imitate the famous product, but they each contained powdered sugar and were more like a cookie than a candy. I detected no powder sugar in my samplings of the famous product – so I didn’t include it in my imitation.

Ingredients:

  • 1 8-oz Hershey’s milk chocolate candy bar
  • 3/4 C peanut butter
  • 4 TB butter or margarine (or 6 tablespoons melted paraffin – optional – but I use it, adding it to the chocolate when I melt it with the peanut butter. It’s up to you!)
  • 3/4 C additional peanut butter

Instructions:

  1. In top of double boiler, over HOT but not boiling, water, melt together the 1st three ingredients, stirring well.
  2. Put ¾ cup additional peanut butter in top of another double boiler over simmering water – or in a heat-proof bowl in a shallow pan of simmering water. Let peanut butter melt just to a pouring consistency.
  3. Have 24 miniature paper liners placed inside cupcake or muffin tin wells. You can place them side-by-side on a cookie sheet, but I like the support that the cupcake tin wells give the papers while the candy is “setting”.
  4. Next, divide HALF of the chocolate mixture, equally between each of the paper liners.
  5. Then, divide ALL the melted peanut butter between each of them, spooning it over the top of the chocolate.
  6. Finally, divide the remaining chocolate over the top of the peanut butter.
  7. Let it stand, at room temperature for 2 hours to “set”. Keep them refrigerated in a covered container up to a week. They’ll keep frozen for months – if they even last that long!
  8. NOTE: if you don’t want to bother with the cups, grease a 9-inch square pan, spreading half of the chocolate mixture evenly over the bottom and then the peanut butter over that and finely the remaining chocolate mixture over the peanut butter layer. Let it set until firm to the touch and cut into neat little squares. Makes about 36 pieces, depending on the size of your squares.
SPECIAL NOTE: The “Recess Peanut Butter Cups” imitation has had a few revisions over the years since Gloria first printed her make-alike version in her cookbook, The Secret Restaurant Recipes Book (Nat’l Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; Jan. 1977, p. 32); when it originally called for Nestle’s milk chocolate candy bars and noted “do no substitute”. After a few discussions with the Hershey’s company, maker of the original product she was duplicating, Gloria offered to only use, and recommend, Hershey’s chocolate instead.

 

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Happiness Is…

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Butter Pie Crust, Like Baker’s Square

Butter Pie Crust, Like Baker’s Square

By Gloria Pitzer

INGREDIENTS:

1 stick butter (NOT margarine)

1 TB sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 C all purpose flour

INSTRUCTIONS:

Prepare a 10-inch Pyrex pie plate by spraying it in Pam. (Pyrex plates work best with this very rich recipe.) If you don’t have Pam, grease the pan in Crisco only! It might stick otherwise!

Melt the butter in a small sauce pan on medium heat until it’s frothy, but don’t let it change color or become the least-bit brown. (I like to put the stick of butter into my heat-proof, 1 ½-quart, glass mixing bowl, placing it in the microwave for 2 to 3 minutes on “Defrost”.)

As soon as the butter is melted, and while it’s still hot, dump in the remaining ingredients.

Turn your electric mixer on high and beat mixture in a bowl for about 30 seconds or until it comes away from the center and hits the sides of the bowl.

Quickly gather mixture into a ball and pat it out to cover the bottom and sides of the Pam-sprayed Pyrex pie plate.

Bake crust at 375°F for 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Then, fill as desired. Makes one 10-inch pie crust.

Note: Make one single recipe at a time. Do not double this recipe. The dough becomes difficult to work with as it cools and, then, it crumbles and breaks apart.

To make a top crust for a filled pie: Pat out a single recipe, as given above, on a Pam-sprayed and waxed-paper-lined dinner plate. Invert top crust over filled, crust-lined pan, per recipe of your choice. Lift off plate and peel back waxed paper. Make slits for steam to escape. Gently press crust to rim of pie pan with a floured fork (or a fork dipped in ice water.) Use an egg-wash if you wish (one egg yolk, beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water and brushed lightly – lapping it, rather than pressing it, over top of crust), but the butter in this crust should allow it to brown beautifully without the wash. Bake per filling recipe directions. Generally, the best temperature is at 375°F for 25 to 28 minutes or until filling begins to bubble up through the slits in the top crust in the crust is golden brown.

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Homemade Holidays

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Big Bucket in the Sky! Fried Chicken, Like KFC

Big Bucket in the Sky! Fried Chicken

THIS RECIPE was created on-the-spot when I discovered that my usual ingredients and…most familiar utensils were not ready…to use on The Donahue Show (… July 7, 1981) …I had to adlib the experience, calling upon every possible thing I could remember about good cooking. It was luck! And luck – of course – is when preparation and experience meet opportunity!

There was a toaster oven on the table the staff had set up for me to use during the live–telecast of the show. At 8 o’clock in the morning, the producer of the show was driving around Chicago, trying to find a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant that was open, so that the audience could later compare what I had prepared to what the restaurant prepared. So, I looked at the ingredients I had on hand and tried to improvise with what was there. The on-the-spot recipe was every bit as good as what Paul & I had been publishing and was so much easier, that again we could prove that there will always be more than one way to arrive at a given result!

INGREDIENTS:

3 C self-rising flour

1 TB paprika

2 packages Lipton Tomato Cup-a-Soup powder mix (see Index of “Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective” for my “Cup-of-Thoup” recipe)

2 packages Good Seasons’ Italian dressing powder mix

1 tsp salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

In doubled plastic food bags, combine all ingredients well, twisting the end of the bags tightly and creating an inflated balloon affect. Shake well to combine.

Spray a jellyroll pan (10 x 15 x 3/4-inch) with Pam or wipe it well with oil.

Run a cut-up chicken fryer under cold water and let excess water drip off, putting all the pieces into a colander to drain a few minutes.

Dredge pieces one at a time in the seasoned flour mixture, by placing each piece in the bag and shaking to coat. Arrange the coated pieces, skin-side up on prepared pan.

Melt ¼ pound margarine or butter and, using a 1-inch-wide, soft-bristled, pastry brush (or one from a paint store with soft hair bristles – NOT plastic bristles,) dab the melted butter or margarine over the floured surface (skin-side only) of each chicken piece until all the melted butter or margarine has been divided between the pieces.

FOR CRISPY COATING: After applying melted butter or margarine, dust pieces with a few additional tablespoons of seasoned flour and drizzle with more melted butter or margarine before baking.

Bake it in a 350°F oven, uncovered, for 1 hour or until golden brown and tender.

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Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Teach a Child to Fish

This memory is not exactly of my mom…not directly anyway. Some of my favorite early childhood memories are of fishing with my dad and two brothers. My brothers didn’t very much care for me tagging along, but Dad was happy with my enthusiastic interest in fishing… especially, I think, because I liked to find the worms with which for him to bait our hooks. I was pretty good at it too!

Dad & I relaxing in the front yard. Photographed by Gloria Pitzer, July 1970

We were living in the Algonac-Pearl Beach area (of Michigan), on the beautiful St. Clair River (part of the St. Lawrence Seaway), across from the North Channel (west of Harsens Island) that flows into Lake St. Clair. We fished off the end of our dock often, Spring through Fall; for bass, perch, walleye, whitefish, trout, salmon, etc. – whatever was in season at the time.

One day, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, fishing with my dad and brother, Mike; my line caught something that I just couldn’t pull in by myself. Dad came over to help me. I was very excited that I had caught something, and it was apparently BIG because I couldn’t reel it in by myself! After a couple minutes of struggling, even with Dad’s help, we finally got it pulled up to the surface of the water, only to find it was an old shoe filled with mud! Dad helped me to cast my line out again and I patiently waited for a real bite. Then, I got a rather strong pull on my line and Dad had to help me reel it in again – this time it was an old coffee can filled with mud! My brother, Mike, got the biggest kick out of that and roared with laughter!!!

Dad set me back up with a new worm on my hook, to try again on the other side of the dock, hoping I wouldn’t catch another shoe or can of mud. Within MINUTES I had hooked something big and heavy again! Mike teased me that it was another can of mud. But, as Dad helped me, again, to get the object to the surface, we saw it was a HUGE catfish, which broke my line as soon as we got it up on the edge of the dock. It flopped back into the water and swam away quickly. So, I do have a story about “the one that got away” – and it was real!

Mom drew this cartoon in 1971, for her syndicated column, Full House as Kept by Gloria Pitzer, based on my love to fish, and my brothers’ irritation of it:

When it was raining outside, and I couldn’t go out on the dock to fish, Mom would set me up on our screened-in porch with a large tub of water, a lawn chair and a “pretend” pole she made from a stick, with a piece of rope tied to it and a rock tied to the other end of the rope (as seen in the photo below, with my little sister.) This reminds me of a “meme” (a humorous image, video, or piece of text) that I like, being shared on Facebook in many forms that, basically, says something along the lines of: “When I was a kid… I didn’t have cable, a computer, internet, Nintendo, X-Box, or Wii. My toys were a bike, fishing pole, bat, ball, mitt, sand box, swing set, trees and so much more. My playroom was the outside world and I had a curfew and drank water out of a hose. If I didn’t eat what my mom made me, I didn’t eat. I didn’t dare tell my parents ‘no’, nor did I dare talk back to them disrespectfully. Life wasn’t hard, it was just life… And I survived.’

Cheryl & I, fishing on the front porch (Algonac, MI) Photographed by Gloria Pitzer, September 1971

I love the aroma of a good fish fry!!! Mom had a few good recipes for coating and frying the fish we caught. Below is Mom’s 1983 make-alike version of Long John Silver’s fish batter, as seen on page 111 in her last book, Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective [published by Balboa Press (January 2018, 1st Printing) – a re-write by me, Laura Emerich, of Mom’s famous, self-published book, Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (May 1983, 3rd Printing)], asking only for proper credit if you care to share it.

LONE JOHN SLIVER FISH BATTER – Similar in texture and flavoring to my ‘Archer Teacher Fish Batter’, but made a bit differently. You can pirate your way through a seaworthy voyage of vittles with this crispy fish coating!

½ cup each: flour and biscuit mix

1 teaspoon season salt

½ teaspoon sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons corn oil

about 1 cup club soda, or Busch light beer

grated rind of half a lemon

¼ teaspoon onion salt

Combine flour, biscuit mix, season salt and sugar. Set aside. Beat egg and oil, adding to half of the club soda or beer. Stir in flour mixture, plus enough more club soda or beer to make it the consistency of buttermilk (as in my “Archer Teacher Batter” recipe.) Stir in lemon rind and onion salt. Tenderize fish fillets in buttermilk as directed in my Treacher recipe (see Index.) Drain fillets and dredge in plain flour. Allow them to dry a few minutes. Dip to coat in prepared batter and fry, a few pieces at a time, in 425°F oil/Crisco mix as directed in my Treacher recipe. When golden brown, remove and keep warm on a paper-lined cookie sheet in a 300°F oven until all pieces have been fried. Serve with my Tartar Sauce (see Index.) Serves 4 to 6 sensibly!

Note: Mom found years later that the fish coating fried best in 385°F oil.

This updated version is from Mom’s “Free Recipes & Information” sheet (2000), asking only for proper credit if you care to share it:

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Lone John Sliver Fish Batter, Like Long John Silver’s

This make-alike version of Long John Silver’s popular fast food product appears on page 111 in “Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective” [published by Balboa Press (January 2018, 1st Printing) – a rewrite by Laura Emerich, of “Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook” (self-published by Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes, May 1983; 3rd Printing)], asking only for proper credit if you care to share it.

LONE JOHN SLIVER FISH BATTER – Similar in texture and flavoring to [The Recipe Detective’s] “Archer Teacher Batter”, but made a bit differently. You can pirate your way through a seaworthy voyage of vittles with this crispy fish coating!

Lone John Sliver Fish Batter

 

This picture (above) is of an updated version, to the one given below, from the Secret Recipe Detective’s “Free Recipes & Information” sheet (2000).

Note: [Gloria] found, in later years, after the development of the version below, that the coating fried best (staying intact) in 385°F oil, as in the later version (above).

The make-alike version (below), of Long John Silver’s popular fast food product, appears on page 111 in Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective [published by Balboa Press (January 2018, 1st Printing) – a rewrite by Laura Emerich, of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret Recipes, May 1983; 3rd Printing)], asking only for proper credit if you care to share it.

LONE JOHN SLIVER FISH BATTER is similar in texture and flavoring to The Recipe Detective’s “Archer Teacher Batter”, but made a bit differently. You can pirate your way through a seaworthy voyage of vittles with this crispy fish coating!

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 C flour

1/2 C biscuit mix

1 tsp season salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1 egg

2 TB corn oil

1 C club soda, or Busch Light beer

grated rind of half a lemon

1/4 tsp onion salt

INSTRUCTIONS:

Combine flour, biscuit mix, season salt and sugar. Set aside.

Beat egg and oil, adding to half of the club soda or beer. Stir in flour mixture, plus enough more club soda or beer to make it the consistency of buttermilk. Stir in lemon rind and onion salt.

Moisten fish fillets in buttermilk [or water as directed in my Arthur Treacher-style recipe (see Index.)] Drain fillets and dredge in plain flour. Allow them to dry a few minutes.

Dip to coat in prepared batter and fry, a few pieces at a time, in 385-425°F oil/Crisco mix. When golden brown, remove and keep warm on a paper-lined cookie sheet in a warm oven until all pieces have been fried.

Serve with Tartar Sauce – Serves 4 to 6 sensibly!

https://therecipedetective.com/2018/11/05/mondays-memories-of-my-mom-teach-a-child-to-fish/