Happy Monday to everybody! I hope you make today special for somebody, even if it’s only for yourself!
My name is Laura Emerich and Gloria Pitzer, the ORIGINAL “Secret Recipe Detective”, is my mom. She passed away almost a year ago (it’ll be a year next Monday) and I started this blog series in September (2018) to carry on her legacy of love with her “Secret Recipes”. To me, her love of writing and cooking and inspiring others in the same was a big part of her legacy – especially since I collaborated with her during the last few years of her life to re-write her favorite cookbook, “The Better Cookery Cookbook” (1983), so it could be re-published to inspire new generations in the “digital age”! Shortly before Mom passed away, it went to print, being published by Balboa Press with the title adjusted to “Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective”.
ASPIRE TO INSPIRE
Have you ever wanted to be amused and inspired at the same time? Mom’s many talents gave me that feeling! I aspire to inspire happiness, as Mom did for so many years, for so many people. As such, this week, I’d like to build more on last week’s blog, “New Year, New Attitude”, and the references I made to inspirations because Mom was, and continues to be, such a huge inspiration in my life. My mom wrote the following excerpt in her book, “My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop”, [self-published by Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes, Dec. 1989; p. 75]:
We embrace the challenge to inspire…The care and concern that an author has for their readers is part of the pleasure of presenting interesting ideas in either an entertaining way or in an informative way. I try to balance my own presentations between the two. When I am broadcasting over the numerous radio stations around the country, sometimes around the world, I try to lift the listener to a new height of interest and enthusiasm, and I leave the serious side of nutrition to the experts, who have the medical background to support their claims. My hope is to present my recipes in such a way that cooking is a joy and never a job! I try to present these recipes with the same concern as I do giving a gift to a special friend. Each of our 5 children, who have grown up helping Paul and me with these recipes, have gone out into the world with this legacy of love and enthusiasm. We can only hope that they use what we have given them.
Photo taken by Gloria Pitzer (1988-ish); The Pitzer “kids” – Bill, Michael, Debbie, Laura and Cheryl
I can only hope that I’ve made Mom proud of what I’m doing with her legacy of love… especially regarding this blog series, her website and her last cookbook; developing and promoting them, in her memory and honor, with the love and passion and so much more that she instilled in me and continues to inspire in me. I want to take this blog, as well as her website & book, to new heights for her. It’s a work in progress though. I’ll be honest – while I love to write, promoting and selling are not my forte.
“In doing our best, we run into road blocks we hadn’t counted on; and it is not the falls we take that make the difference, but how well we recover and continue on that matters.” – Gloria Pitzer [“My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop”, self-published by Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes, Dec. 1989; p. xi]
My inherited love for writing has always been in me. One of my favorite and youngest memories of Mom & I is when she was first teaching me how to write, from how to hold the pencil to how to draw the letters to how to form the words by putting those wonderful letters together. Much like Mom, when I was growing up, I was always drawing, reading and writing little stories, as well as a lot of poetry. Whether it was inspired by or inherited from my Mom, English was always my favorite subject throughout school and I always loved the essay assignments the most!
“Succeeding against the odds…When I look back now, I realize that I was so busy trying to prove that others were wrong about me, I couldn’t see how events were already taking place that would sooner or later put me where I had always wanted to be – writing for a worthwhile living, while it made living worthwhile.” – Gloria Pitzer [“My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop”, self-published by Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes, Dec. 1989; p. 81]
Mom always hated when “the press” referred to her as having turned a hobby into an occupation. Writing was never a hobby to Mom, and she used to say that being a writer isn’t what she did; but, rather, who she was! I could always relate to that! She also loved to say in a lot of her publishings that, while she made a worthwhile living at writing, it was her writing that made living worthwhile. I’ve never made a living at writing, but I’d certainly love to do that!
My road block, however, is promoting and selling; which is much more of a learning process for me, while it just seemed to come naturally for Mom. Luckily, I love to learn! Another one of the things Mom inspired in me is my passion to learn – she’d always say, “learn something new every day!” Along with my “new year, new attitude” resolution for 2019, I’ve determined that every day is a defining moment for each of us, in which experience and knowledge, together, influence our personal evolution; thus, we need to seize those moments and do our best to make the most out of them!
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers
Nowadays, knowledge is literally and instantaneously at our finger tips! For most of my life, I was a bookworm. I continue to love the hard copy in my hands; but, now, I’m also a world-wide-web-worm! There’s so much out there from which to learn! But you have to be self-motivated to and self-inspired to grab the book or the computer and open the “pages” and read, soaking it up like a sponge! Of course, you also have to be able to differentiate between what’s fact and what’s fiction; but, that’s a discussion for another time.
One particular couple I’ve found on the web, from whom I love to learn, are Alex & Lauren of createandgo.co. They have been inspiring me a lot in this learning process I started for blogging and promoting, because I would love to afford do this full-time and completely give up my part-time, “real-paying” job as a data collector.
“The best way to learn any new pattern of behavior – whether it is eating or dancing or jogging or working – is to break it down into small manageable parts and work through them step-by-step!” – Gloria Pitzer, [“Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective”, published by Balboa Press (January 2018) – a re-write by Laura Emerich, of her famous, self-published book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook” (May 1983, 3rd Printing), page 283]
It was always such a mystery to Mom why some people were willing to endure such an irony of accepting the risk of failing at what they attempt with foods (preparing, presenting, etc.) more readily than they will the failings with their relationships with other people, and that they’d put more effort into setting a good table rather than setting a good example. I’m inspired by Mom to do both.
Once again, as with my pervious blogs, I’d like to close with one of Mom’s make-alike recipes that appeared on her “Free Recipes/Information” sheet (2000), which she used to give out in exchange for a self-addressed, stamped envelope; asking only for proper credit if you care to share it. In keeping with the Super Bowl season of party planning (or attending), this is a photo copy of her imitation of Hooters-Style Wings, which I think she originally called Chooser’s Wings and, later, changed it to Hoosier’s Wings.
Note: this particular chicken wings recipe was not included in Mom’s last cookbook, “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 her famous, self-published book, “Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook” (May 1983, 3rd Printing). However, recipes for many other wonderful chicken and other related dishes, as well as wonderful morsels of Food for Thought and humorous antidotes can be found in the “Chicken” chapter or section of this book on pages 86-104. Enjoy!
