April 2021 - Secret Recipes

April 26, 2021

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Let Me Tell You A Story

Happy 17^th Monday of the year! Personally, I always look forward to every Monday because they are my 52 Chances each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with all of you!

#TheRecipeDetective

#WHBY

Today is extra special because it’s the last Monday of the month! That means it’s time for my regular monthly visit on the “Good Neighbor” show, with Kathy Keene! It’s been one year since Kathy and I started reminiscing about Mom on her radio show! You can listen to it live or later through WHBY’s website. I’m usually on during the first half-hour of the show. You can also chime in, as the studio’s phone number is listed on the website and Kathy loves to take calls from her listeners!

#NationalTellAStoryDay

Additionally, tomorrow is National Tell a Story Day! That makes this week a really great opportunity for me to re-tell Mom’s story again! She was a very talented storyteller, herself, as well as an awesome illustrator, writer, publisher, and innovative recipe developer!

In the mid-1970’s, Mom became an international sensation for having developed the “Copycat Cookery” concept of imitating the so-called “taboo” junk foods and fast foods at home, as well as other famous restaurant dishes and grocery store convenience foods. Everything about Mom and her work was unique and fresh, thus, word spread fast!

Mom was a regular guest on Kathy Keene’s “Good Neighbor” show, once a month for almost 13 years (June 1992 through December 2005). In fact, Mom was a regular guest on MANY radio shows all over North America for almost 40 years (1974-2013)!

Mom also did some television talk shows (locally, nationally, and internationally), November 1974 through April 1993, including the famous Phil Donahue Show – TWICE! However, Mom didn’t do any more after that last one, with Phil Donahue; which, by the way, smashed the record for the MOST requested transcript ever! The producers even re-ran Mom’s 1993 episode the year Phil retired the show.

Later, in 1993, an attempt was made by Guthie-Renker Corp. to film an infomercial with Mom for selling some of her cookbooks, of which they completely changed the look. The infomercial was supposed to look similar to Mom’s appearances on ABC’s Home show (May 1991 – when she was personally introduced to Wally Amos) and that last interview with Phil Donahue (April 1993).

The infomercial’s talk show format was called “Ask Mike”. Mom demonstrated making some of her popular imitations, while “Mike” acted like a dramatic caricature of Phil. Wally Amos cameoed as a street interviewer, offering taste-test challenges to “random people on the street” with samples of Mom’s imitations versus the originals! It was produced & directed by Positive Response Television, but it never aired.

Without going into all the “Hollywood drama” that surrounded the project, I will just say that Mom received her own personal copies on VHS; but the whole project was otherwise shelved, and the experience really soured Mom from ever wanting to do television again.

Nonetheless, Mom had always loved her radio shows the best! They were the cornerstones of her business from the very beginning, when she started promoting her work on Bob Allison’s “Ask Your Neighbor” radio program. Here’s how Mom tells that story…

When Mom started to semi-semi-retire, after retiring her newsletter in December 2000, a lot of people, like Kathy, began wondering over the years: “What ever happened to the Secret Recipe Detective^TM, Gloria Pitzer?” Let me tell you that story…

After 2000, over the next four years, Mom wrote and published four more cookbooks and seven recipe bulletins focused on certain brands or chains. Also, in 2002, she and Dad reprinted her popular, 1986, “short-cut-cookery” cookbook – Gloria Pitzer’s Mostly 4-Ingredient Recipes.

Mom had inadvertently carved out another new niche in the recipe industry when she started focusing on developing her “short-cut” recipes (with 5 ingredients or less) for reproducing her imitations. They became the most requested recipes from her radio audience! Mom continued to promote her recipe collections for almost a decade more but on a much smaller scale, as they planned to fully retire when their stock ran out.

Mom continued to do lectures about her short-cut cookery style for imitating almost anything; here and there at various libraries and for some of the Good Sam club’s “Samboree” events. Mom and Dad LOVED being “Good Sam-ers” for many happy years. They made so many friends everywhere they went.

#TheRecipeDetective

As I told Kathy last year, when we started chatting together, Mom tried but couldn’t bring herself to FULLY retire in 2006, as Dad would’ve liked. However, she did scale back her commitments and offerings every few years until 2014. Mom just couldn’t completely stop doing what she loved so much and so completely.

She eked out eight more years of Secret Recipes^TM, promoting and selling (on a very small scale) that 2002 reprint of her Mostly 4-Ingredient Recipes cookbook; plus, her seven different, 2-page, recipe “bulletins” and a 4-page “folder” of her favorite “Soups and Other Comfort Foods” – which reminds me of something Mom wrote about “selling”…

In August 2008, my brother, Mike, had created the TheRecipeDetective.com’s original website for Mom and Dad’s business. It was a new platform from which they could promote their current Secret Recipes^TM offerings and give out free recipes too, as Mom traditionally did from the beginning.

Since Mom and Dad knew nothing about technology, Mike managed and ran the website for 10 years, until after Mom passed away. That summer, I had wanted to start writing this blog about Mom’s “Recipe Detective” legacy and I had asked Mike if I could put it on the website.

Instead of continuing to manage the site, himself, Mike transferred the domain to me. Due to different hosting and other things, the website isn’t exactly the same as it was three years ago when Mike had it, but I’m working on making it a legacy for which Mom would still be proud.

The winter after Dad had passed away, Mom wanted to revive her favorite cookbook, The Better Cookery Cookbook (first printed in 1982), hoping to reach out to a new generation of cooks; meanwhile, hopefully creating a new residual income, for herself. But she couldn’t physically do the self-publishing route again, which she and Dad had always done together.

After decades of saying she would never let anyone else publish her works, Mom finally consented to letting another publisher do it. So, my brother, Mike, and I did some research on different publishers, finally choosing Balboa Press; who were more than happy to republish Mom’s old cookbook, without changing nearly as much as she feared they would.

Only two things really needed to be changed, per the publisher. First, the name of the book, because it too closely resembled the title of Betty Crocker’s cookbook. I tried to explain to the publisher that was the whole premise of Mom’s book – to imitate – and it already sold that way for over a decade without incident from Betty Crocker.

But they insisted, otherwise they would not publish it. Thus, to simplify the change as much as possible (see picture above), the title became Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective. The second change was removing the likeness of KFC’s “Colonel” from her “Big Bucket In The Sky” illustrations.

However, Balboa couldn’t just reprint one of our original copies. Things had changed a bit. Thus, because of eBooks and new technology equipment, I had to retype the entire book into Microsoft Word for Mom, reformatting it to fit the size we chose for the new edition’s layout.

I also had to scan all of her pictures and illustrations from the original book to be placed in the reprint, too. Due to extended costs, we couldn’t reprint all of them, so Mom and I chose our favorites. We also decided to leave out most of the diet section from the original and a few other things that were no longer current or applicable.

It took me a couple of years to rewrite the book for Mom, as I was juggling many responsibilities, at the time. But the book finally went to print shortly before Mom passed away, in January 2018. She was really happy when she heard it was published again. She told me that one of her favorite parts of her lifetime was that she was kind of famous for a little while and she was blessed to have met some really wonderful people because of it…

LAST THOUGHTS…

I still love hearing from people who knew Mom AND Dad, both. Once Dad had retired from his job in 1976 to help Mom full-time with the business, they spent over 38 years together, side-by-side, every day, 24/7, running their family enterprise. Where there was one, the other was always close at hand!

Even though the past year of quarantining together, 24/7, has tested many couples’ compatibility; keep in mind that Mom and Dad CHOSE to be together that much. It wasn’t always a smooth road, but it was a loving (and learning) journey, nonetheless.

Everyone I’ve heard from over the past few years has had some awesome stories to tell about how, both, Mom and Dad had touched all of their lives in some special ways! I hope you’ll write to me at therecipedetective@outlook.com and tell me your stories, your memories, of Mom and Dad.

IN CLOSING…

https://www.balboapress.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001062253

#NationalSoftPretzelMonth

#NationalPretzelDay

In honor of this being National Soft Pretzel Month & National Pretzel Day, together, here is an encore of Mom’s “secret recipe” for Soft Pretzels; as seen in her last book…

Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 274)!

[A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3^rd Edition)]

AND, for it still being April and National Pecan Month, here’s Mom’s imitation of Pecan Pie Like Big Boy’s, also seen in her last book… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 240)!

[A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3^rd Edition)]

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

P.S. Food-for-thought until we meet again, next Monday…

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

Some other celebrations for this week, through the end of April, include the following:

Today, April 26^th, is… National Kids and Pets Day, National South Dakota Day, and National Poem In Your Pocket Day [which changes annually – April 26, 2021]! This is also the 35^th birthday of one of my kids… my daughter, Tara (pictured below, with Mom)… Happy birthday, Honey!

Tuesday, April 27^th, is… National Babe Ruth Day, National Devil Dog Day, and National Prime Rib Day!

Wednesday, April 28^th, is… National Blueberry Pie Day, National Great Poetry Reading Day, National Superhero Day, Workers’ Memorial Day, and Denim Day [which NationalDayCalendar.com claims changes annually – April 28^th for 2021. *NOTE: Wikipedia says it’s annually on the 29^th of April.]

Thursday, April 29^th, is… National Peace Rose Day, National Shrimp Scampi Day, and National Zipper Day!

Friday, April 30^th, is… National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day, National Bugs Bunny Day, National Honesty Day, National Oatmeal Cookie Day, National Raisin Day, National Hairstylist Appreciation Day, and National Arbor Day [which is always the last Friday in April]!

#TGIM

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-thank-god-its-monday-day-first-monday-in-january/

…17 down and 35 to go!

April 19, 2021April 19, 2021

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Volunteers Raise A Village

Happy Monday and happy National Volunteer Week to everyone! I always love to celebrate Mondays because they are my 52 Chances each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with all of you!

#TheRecipeDetective

April is still celebrating, among other things, National Volunteer Month; which came to be, in 1991, through President Bush’s “1000 Points of Light” campaign. Additionally, yesterday was the beginning of National Volunteer Week, which started in 1974 and is always observed throughout the 3^rd full week of April!

Volunteers can be ANYONE – you don’t have to be a certain age or have a lot of money or time on your hands, nor do you need to have any special talents or skills. These unpaid workers are priceless helpers and undoubtedly the most unsung heroes of all time, helping to keep so many organizations and communities running!

We’re taught from generation to generation, the importance of volunteering… Paying it forward… Giving back to our communities and beyond! From the small-town, rural countryside to large metropolises, communities would not be able to completely function without volunteers, selflessly making a BIG difference.

In fact, most rural emergency services, like fire and medical, are staffed almost completely through the generous efforts of its community members. The service of volunteering is often woven into kids’ after school programs, such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, or the Campfire Boys & Girls Club. Additionally, it is also the summer-vacation-cornerstone of many college bound, high schoolers’ resumes.

This past year has had an influx of people, giving their time (since they’ve had more of it to give) and talents, doing “good deeds” for others, and helping out those who’ve had greater needs than themselves. Likewise, many people have also stepped up to the plate by donating things like tablets (and other such electronic devices), PPE, money, food, and other needs.

National Volunteer Week presents a special opportunity for all of us to thank our local volunteers – AND also to join them, in some way, as they are setting great inspirational examples for us to follow. Mom used to say, “The most valuable gift you can give is to be a good example!” While this past year has seen some dark, sorrowing days amidst the Covid-19 pandemic; it also seems to have brought out some of the best volunteers and “good examples” in more of us than ever before.

‘I’ve had so many good examples to follow – I’ll try to be one, myself, to somebody else.’ – Gloria Pitzer, This Is Not A Cook Book, (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 8)

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

Excerpts, written by Gloria Pitzer, as seen in…

This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, pp. 34 & 50)

WHEN YOU HEAL THE HURT

IT HAS BEEN SAID that ‘when God closes a door, He opens a window’ – for those who have the wit to discover it. Among the ill, the handicapped, the disfigured… are an astonishing number of people who have found their ‘windows’. In quiet resurrections, they have risen out of their pain and despair and shattered hopes to new ambitions, new satisfactions and new happiness.

Though largely unsung, these men and women have in them the stuff of heroes! Their battles of necessity are fought alone… in endless hours and days and months. But, in these battles, they somehow develop a special kind of courage and, sooner or later, the breakthrough comes. Then, in spite of all the odds against them, they dare to say: ‘I may not have much candle left but, with what I have, I’ll shed a light.’

So, if you can’t be a lighthouse – be a candle! Let your light shine so that those on whom it may fall, will be blessed; and, like a springboard, bounce right back to make you feel good about it… There’s an old English verse [pictured below] that always comes back to me when I think of how nice it would be if this were not a ‘keep-your-distance’ and ‘don’t get me involved’ world!…

DON’T GIVE UP

PEOPLE NOWADAYS GIVE up too easily. They’ll donate a dollar to an anonymous recipient of any given charity but won’t give two words to an offended neighbor – the two most important words of successfully living side-by-side – ‘I’m sorry.’ [NOTE: Some other great pairs include ‘let’s talk’, ‘you’re forgiven’, ‘thank you’, and ‘you’re welcome’.]

You don’t throw away the patient because the bandage needs changing. You try again… and again for some common ground of understanding. Otherwise, how will we, as a society, ever be able to love our neighbors across the world, until we have first learned to love those across the street?

‘THE GREATEST WASTE in the world is the difference between what we are, and what we could be!’ – Gloria Pitzer, This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 10)

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Gardening Versus Convenience

Happy Monday to everyone! Unlike The Carpenters’ song, ‘Rainy Days & Mondays’, I love to CELEBRATE Mondays! They are my 52 Chances each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with all of you!

#TheRecipeDetective

Mother Nature’s grand arena is bursting with activity, as spring has been awakening the earth. Life is regenerating all around us. Now is a great time to get out in the yard and gardens since the whole month of April is celebrating, among other things – Keep America Beautiful Month, Lawn and Garden Month, National Garden Month, National Straw Hat Month, and Stress Awareness Month! [I’ll tell you in a little bit how that one is related to the others.]

#NationalGardeningDay

Furthermore, Wednesday is National Gardening Day! So, if you haven’t been out in the garden yet – this is certainly the week to do it! An old adage says, “April showers bring May flowers” (some fruits and vegetables too). But it’s a little more involved than that. First, you have to get the soil ready – mulching, weeding, composting, etc. – before you even plant the bulbs, seeds or seedlings.

When planting vegetables, some seeds are better to start indoors, such as tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli. After about 6-8 weeks of growth, they’re transplanted in the garden, when there are more optimum weather conditions. Some seedlings don’t transplant well and, thus, should be sown right into the ground when weather allows. Examples of such include corn, beans, and peas. They should also be covered at night, whenever frost conditions are possible.

April is a great time, depending on your USDA planting zone, to start planting and growing perennial fruits and vegetables like asparagus, chives, rhubarb, raspberries, horseradish and more. I already have the first four in my gardens. My asparagus is usually the first to pop up, around late May.

This is also a good time to start “cold crop”, annual plantings such as cabbage, spinach and other “greens”; as well as root vegetables like potatoes, onions, carrots and beets. I’m not sure from where Mom got her original interest in gardening, as well as her green thumb; but I think I might have inherited it too.

Mom’s garden, in Algonac, had a lot of perennials, but I remember helping her plant seedlings for strawberries and tomatoes every spring when I was young! Then there was the subsequent harvesting of our labors from the family’s little garden and orchard. I recall picking tomatoes, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb. Mom would turn it all into culinary delights such as sauces, jams, pies, cobblers, and the like.

When Mom first started writing and publishing her own newsletter, in 1974, aside from her recipes she also included a smorgasbord of different topics that homemakers, like herself, would be interested in. One of the sections was full of gardening tips.

Mom liked to use coffee grounds and ground-up, dried, egg shells to help her tomato plants thrive. A tip she learned from my Dad’s mom, who gardened and canned a lot of tomatoes, sauces and jams in her own lifetime!

But as Mom’s “Secret Recipes” business grew quickly, within a few years she had very little time to spend on her garden, because she was spending more time investigating further secrets of the food industry. Subsequently, she dropped the gardening section in the newsletter to make room for more copycat recipes!

After we moved from Algonac to St. Clair, in 1977, Mom did continue to, at least, have a few tomato plants in patio pots every spring through fall. She always had a green thumb, both, in the house and in the garden!

While most of Mom’s cookbooks (and newsletters) focused on imitating fast food, junk food, and restaurant dishes at home; one of her books dealt exclusively with imitating convenience foods, grocery products and “extenders” at home – The Secrets of Homemade Groceries (Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; Sep. 1979) – aka: “Book 5”.

When Mom used to describe the book for advertisements, she’d say “this exceptional cookbook includes some basic principles of canning and freezing foods, as well as making your own mixes, sauces and seasonings for a great financial savings compared to buying them!”

Besides the obvious financial savings and nutritional aspects of growing your own food, gardening has many other healthy advantages. According to Six Surprising Health Benefits of Gardening, as posted by OrganicLesson.com (Published 2/26/2018, Updated 1/30/2021), gardening strengthens the muscles (as it can be a physical workout) and boosts the immune system.

Gardening is also known to increase happiness, stimulate the brain, and relieve stress. As I said in the beginning, April is Stress Awareness Month, too! Growing any kind of garden can be very therapeutic if you’re feeling stressed out and/or cooped up from this past year of quarantining for the Covid-19 pandemic.

Additionally, if you’ve gained what’s being coined as the “Covid 15” weight growth, 20 Everyday Activities and the Calories They Burn, by the Editors of Publications International, Ltd. (as seen on HowStuffWorks.com) claims that two hours of gardening burns about 648 calories or more!

If you don’t have your own garden, or the room for one, just a few patio pots will work. You can also check around your area for a community garden in which you can participate. Gardening has a windfall of benefits! I’m already looking forward to putting on my straw hat (as it is National Straw Hat Month) and getting back into my garden beds this spring.

No matter what’s planted, anyone can burn a lot of calories by taking care of a garden, as there are so many physical aspects involved – planting, mulching, weeding, composting, pruning, watering (repeating the last four or five tasks, over and over, at least a couple times a week for a few months) and finally harvesting!

‘The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.’ – Aldous Huxley, English Writer & Philosopher (1894-1963)

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

We all know that when life gives us lemons, we should make lemonade! But did you know that as much as 75% of grocery products (including lemonade) are considered to be convenience foods, requiring minimal effort, which can be made at home with what life gives you (and a little effort)? Plant the seeds! In fact, many annuals produce their own seeds for future plantings, too.

Ever since the pandemic us hit hard, the art of homesteading found another revival movement. More people are learning how to grow their own food and make their own OTC health and beauty products. Many are even starting home/internet businesses, selling their homemade products to those who don’t have the time or talents for it, themselves.

WHEN YOU CAN’T FIND WHAT YOU NEED AT THE MARKET – MAKE YOUR OWN… I learned the following “trick” from my local EOC Head Start group, three decades ago, when my children were small…

EASY HOMEMADE CORN SYRUP – The best substitute for 1 cup of corn syrup is to dissolve 1¼ cups sugar (or sugar substitute equivalent) into ¼ cup HOT water. For dark corn syrup, use brown sugar; for light corn syrup, use white sugar. By the way, a 4:1 ratio of white sugar to boiled water will also yield (when cooled to room temperature) an excellent homemade nectar for hummingbirds!

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

The Secrets of Homemade Groceries (Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; Sep. 1979)

LIFE IS A CLIMB

MANY PEOPLE FEEL that life is uphill all the way. They fail to look at the things that are good, enjoyable and worthwhile. They are conscience only of the climb. No road is ever uphill forever! We should soon learn the importance of being able to also come downhill without fear and be able to notice the scenery along the road, too.

Going through life without noticing the scenery and trying to see some of the beauty that is there – waiting to be recognized – reminds me of running helter-skelter up and down the supermarket aisles without seeing the ABUNDANCE that is there. Just take a moment to look at the heart-breaking plight of starving people in many parts of the world and, then, take a good look at the aisles and aisles of food available in this country!

We have so much available to us here… Many people fill their backyards each spring with flowers and shrubs, when they could easily plant food-seeds instead, thus cutting something off that weekly grocery bill!

‘Any change, even change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.’ – Arnold Bennett, English Novelist (1867-1931)

Convenience foods are boxed, canned and packaged food products that are manufactured for our expedient ease because we’ve become a too-busy-with-other-things, accessibility-laden society! Consider, also, that these shelf-stable products are filled with unnatural and unpronounceable preservatives and synthetic additives, in order to last for years on the grocery stores’ shelves, as well as in our own pantries.

If you’re concerned with all the additives that are put into convenient, shelf-stable groceries, then homemade is one way you can control the ingredients. Plus, you can also save money – as long as you don’t add the value of your time into the equation! The ‘overhead costs’ and ‘expected profits’ that are added to manufactured convenience foods are what actually kill our food budgets at the check-outs!

LAST THOUGHTS…

Here’s a garden decorating idea I want to re-share from a couple of years ago! I love it when things can serve more than one purpose – thus, my Christmas deer, lawn ornaments (lights removed) serve as trellises in my vegetable garden, during their “off-season”! They’re great for various vining plants like cucumbers, beans and peas; AND, as a bonus, I don’t have to worry about finding storage space for the large figures!

Suggestions for observing April’s garden-related celebrations include having a picnic in a garden or going to a nursery and buying a new plant. You could also decorate your garden (as it’s also National Decorating Month) by adding some garden art and/or a seating area, where you can relax and enjoy it all! Another way to observe is by giving a gardening gift to someone special, like seeds, garden gloves, or a patio plant! Don’t forget to share your ideas on social media with a hashtag!

#NationalDecoratingMonth, #KeepAmericaBeautifulMonth, #LawnAndGardenMonth, #NationalGardenMonth

IN CLOSING…

#NationalFreshCeleryMonth

In honor of April, also being National Fresh Celery Month, here is Mom’s “secret recipe” for a simple “Cream Soup Base”, with two of her many options for turning it into Cream of Cauliflower or Cream of Celery soup!

As seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 117).

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

P.S. Food-for-thought until we meet again, next Monday…

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

APRIL IS still celebrating, among other things… National Month of Hope, National Autism Awareness Month, National Couple Appreciation Month, National Humor Month, National Soft Pretzel Month, National Soy Foods Month, National Poetry Month, National Pecan Month, National Volunteer Month, and Scottish-American Heritage Month!

Some other celebrations for the week include:

Today is also… National Big Wind Day, National Colorado Day, National Licorice Day, and National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day! Therefore, here’s Mom’s take on a grilled cheese sandwich – college dorm-style!

Tuesday is… National Make Lunch Count Day, National Peach Cobbler Day, and National Scrabble Day!

Wednesday is… National Dolphin Day, National Pecan Day, National Reach as High as You Can Day, and Look Up at the Sky Day!

Thursday is… National Banana Day, National Glazed Spiral Ham Day, National Rubber Eraser Day, National Take a Wild Guess Day, Get to Know Your Customers Day (which is the 3^rd Thursday of each quarter), and National High Five Day (which is the 3^rd Thursday in April)!

Friday is… National Eggs Benedict Day, National Orchid Day, and National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day!

Saturday is… National Cheeseball Day, National Ellis Island Family History Day, and National Haiku Poetry Day!

Sunday is… National Animal Crackers Day and National Columnists’ Day! It is also the start of National Volunteer Week (which is the 3^rd full week of April)!

#WHBY

#TGIM

…15 down, 37 to go!

April 5, 2021

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Twinkie Day Eve

Happy April and happy Easter Monday! Additionally, I wish a very merry Twinkie Day Eve to all! Mondays are so incredibly special! I continually look forward to them, as they are my 52 Chances, each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with all of you!

#TheRecipeDetective

#TwinkieDay

Tomorrow, April 6^th, is National Hostess Twinkie Day! That makes today Twinkie Day Eve – whoop, whoop! This is a perfect time for me to write about how my mom was the FIRST person (circa 1975) to develop a make-at-home version for imitating the cream-filled, golden-sponge-cake delight at home!

When I searched for “Twinkie recipe” on Google, I got back “about 657,000 results…” and Mom wasn’t even in the first two pages of results! So MANY copycats have copied the ORIGINAL copycat – and yet so FEW have actually given my mom the proper credit she deserves for being the inventor of imitating junk foods, fast foods, and other restaurant favorites at home. Mom was the trail-blazing pioneer, who carved out the “copycat cookery” niche in the food industry over 48 years ago!

However, I must note that when I searched for “Pitzer Twinkie recipe”, the first result listed (out of 22,500 results) was actually for Mom’s Hopeless Twinkles_© recipe, which I had shared in a previous blog post, on this website, in 2019! [It can also be found in the “Recipes” tab and near the end of this blog post.]

Additionally, I’d also like to give a shout-out to PressReader.com, for printing a copy of one of Mom’s Twinkie imitations, with proper credit given to her! You can check it out at https://www.pressreader.com/usa/orlando-sentinel/20121128/282398396711181! In my search, I also found the following excerpt of interest… as seen at https://www.food.com/recipe/hostess-twinkie-sponge-cake-356820/reviews/846730.

“Review [of homemade Hostess Twinkies] by Tinkerbell (4/10/2009) – NorthwestGal recommended this recipe to me & when I looked at it I was so surprised! I can’t say that I have made this exact recipe, but I can help shed some light on its origin & say that I have made it’s later version, also by Gloria. I saw Gloria Pitzer for the first time on the Phil Donahue show on April 8, 1993. I immediately called & ordered the original transcript of the show. (No TiVo back then! LOL) Gloria Pitzer, the original recipe detective, had been “cloning” recipes for 20 years but got her real jump start when she was working at a newspaper that decided to add a food page. The first letter she opened asked, “How do they make that special sauce at McDonald’s?” She went home & made & remade until she had a sauce that mimicked the Big Mac’s special sauce. After that she branched out into KFC, Wendy’s Frosty & Chili, Oreo cookies and Hostess Twinkies. But, after only 6 weeks doing the new food page for the paper she lost her job because one of her clone recipes (Share A Lease cheesecake) “stepped on the toes of a famous cheesecake company that was also a sponsor of the paper”. She made up new names for her copycat recipes, like Wednesday’s chili (I have that posted here Recipe #21936), Gloreo Cookies (love that recipe!), Big Bucket in the Sky Chicken, Big Match special sauce & Hopeless Twinkles. She first appeared on the Donahue show in July of 1981 and within 90 days the Donahue show received over one million letters about her episode. She appeared again 12 years later, in 1993, when I was lucky enough to be watching with my newborn son. After comparing this recipe with the one I’ve made from the 1993 transcript I see she did alter the recipe quite a bit. She made them on the 1981 episode and again with her new version in 1993. I’ve made the newest version from my transcript. I look forward to trying this one as well. 🙂 Thanks for posting it, Max!”

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

Did you know… on August 19^th, 1919… William B. Ward registered the trademark name, Hostess, for his family’s company’s breads and cakes? Additionally, it was James Dewar, who invented the Twinkie_® while working for the Ward family at the Continental Baking Company. Originally, when the baking company was founded in the early 1900s, it was called Ward Baking Company. Later, as the Continental Baking Company, it was purchased by Interstate Bakeries Corporation and renamed Hostess Brands.

For a more in-depth history of the Ward family, their baking company, Dewar’s Twinkies® and the drama that surrounded all of them, check out this fascinating article about it (as written by Bloomberg News), on FinancialPost.com, at https://business.financialpost.com/news/twinkie-history-spiced-with-murder-scandal-suggests-icon-will-survive! I’ve included, below, the short story that Mom wrote about Dewar decades ago.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective, (Balboa Press, Jan. 2018, p. 204)

[A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3^rd Edition)]

JAMES DEWAR

JAMES DEWAR STARTED OUT driving a horse-drawn wagon in Chicago and, by 1930, was manager of the Continental Baking Company’s Chicago establishment. He invented ‘The Twinkie’, a sponge-type cake with creamy vanilla-flavored filling [in the early 30s.] It has been called the ‘Grand-daddy’ of modern snack foods.

Today, the finger-sized cream-filled cake is as big a confectionery sensation as they were when Dewar first introduced his creation to American cuisine. The company that put out the Twinkie was originally called the Continental Baking Company and later became the Hostess company. At the time, he wanted to give the public something reasonably priced, for the Great Depression of the 30s brought grave times to this country.

Treats like the cream-filled Twinkies, would be a luxury to people who couldn’t afford otherwise. For decades, the appealing factor about the Twinkies national popularity has been that it is affordable! Dewar put 2 cakes in each package, selling them for $.05 a pair. For the price of a nickel, it was quite a bargain. Dewar remembered how the Continental Baking Company was selling small finger-sized shortcakes for strawberry season in the 1930s.

The pans they used to bake them in were not being used except for the spring promotion to produce the shortcakes. He, therefore, came up with the idea of preparing the same shortcake in those pans, but filling each cake with an injection of vanilla cream. The Twinkies became an immediate success!

The idea for the name, on the other hand, came while he was on a business trip to St. Louis and saw a billboard advertising ‘Twinkle Toes Shoes’, which was, then, a terrific sales pitch. The name ‘Twinkies’ was a spinoff of that shoe advertisement. From then on, the cakes took off.

When Dewar retired from Continental in 1968, he boasted often to the press that he ate scores of Twinkies every day. That’s not a bad endorsement for the critics who claim junk food will shorten your life span.

Do you remember the big run on Twinkies_®, back in November of 2012? The Hostess Brands company had announced it was going out of business and utter chaos ensued as the American masses swarmed their local stores to buy all the yummy, cream-filled, sponge cakes (and other products of Hostess Brands) they could find!

Our Canadian neighbors still had Hostess Brands in their country and were laughing at the lengths Americans were going to get their hands on the suddenly-hard-to-find, coveted Twinkies_®. Some Twinkies_®were actually being auctioned on eBay for THOUSANDS of dollars – and people were paying it! A spokesperson for Hostess sarcastically asked the media where all of these Hostess Brands enthusiasts were before they had to file for bankruptcy.

I saw a great article about Twinkies_® a few years ago that I saved in “My Favorites”. It was called “Beverly Hills Billionaire To Take Over Twinkies Maker, Hostess Brands” and written by James R. Koren (L. A. Times; July 5, 2016), explaining how the Hostess Brands company, under various names and ownerships, was saved from bankruptcy foreclosures more than once over the past century.

When the announcement was first made in 2012 that Hostess Brands was closing their business for good and Americans panicked at their sudden loss, I wasn’t worried about never having Twinkies_® again… because my mom taught me how to make my own! In fact, as the Secret Recipes Detective^TM, Mom taught everyone how to make their own at home!

Month: April 2021

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Let Me Tell You A Story

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Volunteers Raise A Village

‘I’ve had so many good examples to follow – I’ll try to be one, myself, to somebody else.’ – Gloria Pitzer, This Is Not A Cook Book, (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 8)

‘THE GREATEST WASTE in the world is the difference between what we are, and what we could be!’ – Gloria Pitzer, This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 10)

‘Happiness is a state of thought. It begins with gratitude for all we’ve already received and achieved – not with what we own or the things…’ – Gloria Pitzer, as seen in Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes^TM Newsletter, Issue #218 (Secret Recipes^TM, Marysville, MI; Nov. 2000, p. 5)

‘Life’s most precious gifts don’t come in packages. They come from the heart, wrapped in love.’ – Gloria Pitzer

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Gardening Versus Convenience

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Twinkie Day Eve

‘There really are very few recipe secrets!’ – Gloria Pitzer

‘You’ll be amazed at the number of recipes you can duplicate in your own kitchen – and those you can, at least, come close to imitating – with far more success than the advertising people give us credit!’ – Gloria Pitzer

‘I’ve had so many good examples to follow – I’ll try to be one, myself, to somebody else.’ – Gloria Pitzer, This Is Not A Cook Book, (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 8)

‘THE GREATEST WASTE in the world is the difference between what we are, and what we could be!’ – Gloria Pitzer, This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 10)

‘Happiness is a state of thought. It begins with gratitude for all we’ve already received and achieved – not with what we own or the things…’ – Gloria Pitzer, as seen in Gloria Pitzer’s Secret RecipesTM Newsletter, Issue #218 (Secret RecipesTM, Marysville, MI; Nov. 2000, p. 5)

‘Life’s most precious gifts don’t come in packages. They come from the heart, wrapped in love.’ – Gloria Pitzer

‘There really are very few recipe secrets!’ – Gloria Pitzer

‘You’ll be amazed at the number of recipes you can duplicate in your own kitchen – and those you can, at least, come close to imitating – with far more success than the advertising people give us credit!’ – Gloria Pitzer

‘I’ve had so many good examples to follow – I’ll try to be one, myself, to somebody else.’ – Gloria Pitzer, This Is Not A Cook Book, (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 8)

‘THE GREATEST WASTE in the world is the difference between what we are, and what we could be!’ – Gloria Pitzer, This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 10)

‘Happiness is a state of thought. It begins with gratitude for all we’ve already received and achieved – not with what we own or the things…’ – Gloria Pitzer, as seen in Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes^TM Newsletter, Issue #218 (Secret Recipes^TM, Marysville, MI; Nov. 2000, p. 5)