Happy 17th 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!
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!
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 DetectiveTM, 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.
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 RecipesTM, 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 RecipesTM 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 [email protected] and tell me your stories, your memories, of Mom and Dad.
IN CLOSING…
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 RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd 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 RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)]
P.S. Food-for-thought until we meet again, next Monday…
APRIL IS STILL in effect for most of this week and still celebrating, among other things… National Month of Hope, Keep America Beautiful Month, Lawn and Garden Month, National Autism Awareness Month, National Couple Appreciation Month, National Decorating Month, National Fresh Celery Month, National Garden Month, National Humor Month, National Soy Foods Month, National Straw Hat Month, National Poetry Month, National Volunteer Month, Scottish-American Heritage Month, and Stress Awareness Month!
Some other celebrations for this week, through the end of April, include the following:
Today, April 26th, 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 35th birthday of one of my kids… my daughter, Tara (pictured below, with Mom)… Happy birthday, Honey!
Tuesday, April 27th, is… National Babe Ruth Day, National Devil Dog Day, and National Prime Rib Day!
Wednesday, April 28th, 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 28th for 2021. *NOTE: Wikipedia says it’s annually on the 29th of April.]
Thursday, April 29th, is… National Peace Rose Day, National Shrimp Scampi Day, and National Zipper Day!
Friday, April 30th, 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]!
…17 down and 35 to go!
