Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Virtual Shopping Slays Malls

Thank God Its Monday and, as such, #HappyMonday to everyone! I personally look forward to all Mondays because they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!

#TheRecipeDetective

#CyberMonday

Today is, among other things, one of the biggest virtual shopping days of the year, otherwise known as Cyber Monday. It was officially named so by the National Retail Federation in 2005. Since early this century, continuous increases in online shopping, over the years, have caused a ripple effect of brick-and-mortar stores and malls having to close their doors.

After the Covid-19 pandemic started a couple of years ago, online shopping has soared. Cyber Monday sales are far surpassing Black Friday’s sales, by leaps and bounds. Virtual shopping has become so much more commonplace, now – especially with the younger generations.

I’ve noticed, this year, a lot of brick-and-mortar stores have been offering extremely early “Black Friday deals” to compete with online sales campaigns like “Prime Day”, “Cyber Monday”, and the like. I feel bad for them. I prefer shopping in person, myself. Besides, there have been more and more warnings on my local news programs for “buyers beware”, as scams are everywhere in cyber-land.

Regardless, virtual stores are competing on the world-wide web for everyone’s hard-earned dollars; offering rock-bottom, price-cut deals and fast or free shipping. These days, with inflation and the cost of fuel, shipping can be a deal maker or breaker on many online purchases.

Traditionally, since about the 1950s, Black Friday has been the highpoint of holiday shopping, when shoppers physically went out to the brick-and-mortar stores for the all-time-best deals of the year. Extreme shoppers have waited in lines outside of stores for hours (even days) before they opened for their “special” Black Friday deals.

However, the trend is changing, now. Due to the ever increasing online shopping, over the past couple decades, we’ve witnessed the closings of many small shops, department stores, and malls across America. It’s a new “Amazon era” for online shopping and home delivery. Unfortunately, brick-and-mortar retailers are becoming relics of the past.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 108)

SMALL BUSINESSES DISAPPEARING – THE CLOWN SHOP IS GONE!

IT’S NOT IMPOSSIBLE to change things, yet I noticed this morning, for the first time, that the clown shop in the mall is gone – vacated, empty. I kept meaning to go there, but in the year or two that it was there, time passed, and I never did. It must’ve been a wonderfully unique shop – operated by a retired circus clown, from what I’ve been told.

Yet, I put off stopping in to see what gifts [and] what fun he had to offer. My husband was in the shop perhaps a few times. He even bought me a little clown statue for my birthday last January [1988] and the thimble shaped like a clown for our niece in California. I was going to stop into the shop soon. I really was.

Now that the shop is gone, I feel personally responsible for the loss. And, of course, multiply me by a few hundred folks in town, too, who could have stopped but didn’t, even though they meant to. We’re all to blame for the loss.

Of course, the shop was located on the ‘street side’ of the mall, too, rather than in the concourse, so it would have to be a special trip around the buildings to get me there. But now that I think about it, I’m saddened by the prospect that my not patronizing the shop contributed to its going out of business.

Certainly, we need clowns in this life. And while my feet are usually anchored firmly in reality, I feel a great need for stepping often into the light-hearted dimension of the whimsical, the amusing, the ridiculous. There comes a time, each day, when the sadness of the tragedies in the worldly arena seem just too much to bear, too much to accept.

The newscasts of radio and television hammer away hourly, repeatedly at whatever catastrophe has occurred recently. There seem to be no good reports of what’s going on in the world. I know there is good. We just don’t hear too much to cheer us though.

The clown shop could easily have provided something to lighten the gloom, lifting the shade to see beyond hardship and unhappiness. But it looks as if people are becoming hardened to the beauty of simplicity and humor. It looks as if they’re growing paranoid instead about their priorities, about cholesterol, sodium, the sun’s rays (which we used to call ‘sunshine’), about how much they should weigh and how long they will live.

More human energy seems to be spent desperately worrying about the uncertainties of the future than is used to enjoy the simple beauty of our NOW! Our precious ‘now’ should hold more than fear. It should instead hold wholesome fun and the expectancy of good.

The interest in outsiders and people with marginal lives is rooted in my own sense of self as I look for the erasers of the gloom, diversions from the serious and the morbid. By no means do I imply that gloom and seriousness and what is morbid should be ignored.

It should be a must be dealt with, but it should require more of our attention than does the lovely, the light-hearted, the lively in life. I could have found some little offering of fun in the clown shop. ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you. [Cry] and you [cry] alone.’ [Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Solitude (1883)]

If I cry, it is because I know it was there – like a lot of life’s jewels at our feet. I just didn’t do anything about it. If I get another opportunity to patronize a good and wholesome thing, like the clown shop, I will. I promise I will – even though the clown shop is gone.

#NationalSalespersonDay

#FamilyStoriesMonth

When I was a young teen, Mom used to take me and my sisters to Lakeside Mall. Back then, that was the popular place to shop, with its big, anchor, department stores like Sears, Macy’s, J.C. Penny’s and J.L. Hudson’s. It was an all-day shopping and working event.

Mom gave each of us girls a handful of her business cards to stick in the pockets of various clothes and purse displays, while we shopped. She developed this innovative way to advertise, locally, after hearing an inspiring interview of an award winning car salesman from Detroit. By the way, National Salesperson Day is on Friday of next week (for 2022)!

After a few hours of shopping and marketing, Mom treated us to lunch at one of the department stores’ dining rooms, where she usually found more great dishes to imitate at home. You can’t do that when you shop virtually. There aren’t any interactions with other people – no smiles, no conversations, etc. – I miss those days, at the mall, with Mom.

MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 43)

YOU’VE MADE A FRIEND

A SMILE IS the universal, unspoken language between us. Some people smile more easily than others, but a smile is as good as a hug. I just LOVE people who smile a lot! Even when I’m shopping or [when Paul and I are] walking around the campgrounds on one of our abbreviated ‘get-aways’ with our motorhome, I find myself smiling at people I have never seen before, and they smile back. It’s contagious!

People don’t smile as much as they should! I’ve noticed lately how seldom strangers smile at each other in shopping centers and restaurants and other places where average folks mingle or pass. It occurred to me that there was nothing to lose by smiling and nodding at people as I shopped or glanced across a restaurant to other tables.

A surprising thing happened! Grim looking faces spontaneously responded with smiles and nods, as if they were trying to place me or recall where we might have met before. It was just wonderful!

LAST THOUGHTS…

Did you know that synonyms for “cyber” include replicate and imitate? I find it ironic that Mom, the ORIGINAL recipe replicator, never learned how to use the internet to replicate and expand her mail-order business in the new millennium’s digital era.

Early in the new millennium, Mom bought a computer and tried to learn how to operate it, but it proved to be too over-whelming for her to comprehend. She felt so stressed from it, she ended up giving her new computer to one of her grandchildren, instead.

In August 2008, my brother, Mike, 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 had done from the beginning.

#NationalGratitudeMonth

Since Mom and Dad knew nothing about technology, Mike created and managed the website for them for 10 years. They were so grateful for his help in that area! The summer after Mom passed away, I wanted to start writing this blog about her being the ORIGINAL “Secret Recipe Detective”. I asked Mike if I could put my blog on the website that he was still managing. Instead, he transferred the domain to me. For that, I am forever grateful to him, too!

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

IN CLOSING…

In honor of Thursday, being National Pie Day, here’s TWO of Mom’s copycat pie recipes. The first one is for Grasshopper Pie, like Michigan’s famous Chuck Muer’s and Win Schuler’s restaurants once served; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 251). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)].

#NationalPieDay

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

This second pie recipe of Mom’s was first printed in her self-published cookbook, Top Secret Recipes a la Carte (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Sept. 1979). It’s called Vinegar Pie, from our northern, mid-west roots. Mom updated the recipe and reprinted it in her self-published cookbook, The Joy Of NOT Cooking – Any More Than You Have To (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Nov. 1983, p. 148).

#JoyOfNotCooking

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

November observes, among other things… National Banana Pudding Lovers Month, National Diabetes Month, National Fun with Fondue Month, National Inspirational Role Models Month, National Life Writing Month, National Native American Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month, National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, National Pepper Month, National Pomegranate Month, National Raisin Bread Month, National Roasting Month, National Spinach and Squash Month, National Sweet Potato Awareness Month (See also February), and National Vegan Month!

Today is also… National French Toast Day!

Tomorrow is… Electronic Greetings Day! Plus, as the Tuesday after Thanksgiving (for 2022), it’s also… National Day of Giving!

November 30th is… National Personal Space Day, National Mason Jar Day, National Mousse Day, and National Mississippi Day! Plus, as the Wednesday after Cyber Monday, it’s also… National Package Protection Day!

Thursday is the start of December, which celebrates, among other things… National Pear Month, National Write A Business Plan Month, National Operation Santa Paws (which runs the 1st-24th), National Root Vegetables and Exotic Fruits Month, National Safe Toys and Gifts Month, Worldwide Food Service Safety Month, National Human Rights Month, and Universal Human Rights Month!

December 1st is also… National Eat a Red Apple Day, National Day With(out) Art Day, and National Rosa Parks Day!

December 2nd is… National Fritters Day, National Mutt Day, and Special Education Day! Plus, as the first Friday in December, it’s also… Faux Fur Friday and National Bartender Day [for 2022]!

December 3rd is… National Roof Over Your Head Day! Plus, as the first Saturday of the month, it’s also… National Rhubarb Vodka Day and National Play Outside Day (which is always the first Saturday of EVERY month)!

December 4th is… National Cookie Day, National Dice Day, and National Sock Day! Additionally, the first week of December celebrates… National Cookie Cutter Week!

#TGIM

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

…48 down and 4 to go!

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Grateful For Imitation Inspirations

Thank God Its Monday, once again; and, as such, #HappyMonday to everyone! I personally look forward to all Mondays because they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!

#TheRecipeDetective

#NationalGratitudeMonth

#InspirationalRoleModelsMonth

Mom was always grateful for her “readers”, “listeners” and “fans” who kept her endlessly inspired with their requests to find the “secrets” for making their favorite fast food items, restaurant dishes, and grocery products at home (and for a lesser cost).

Mom was also very grateful for all the media sources that interviewed, wrote and talked about her innovative recipe ideas. She was also grateful for us, her family; for supporting and helping her – as office, art and promotional assistants, as well as recipe testers and “flavor specialists” (aka: taste testers) – plus, for staying out of her hair when needed.

‘I felt as if the hand of Providence had poured me out a blessing and it was pressed down, shaken together and running over.’ – Gloria Pitzer, My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 15)

Furthermore, Mom was also an inspirational role model to so many copycat cookers that followed her lead. Many wrote to her for advice about how to do what she was doing. She loved to inspire and encourage other writers. Unfortunately, however, some just plagiarized her work and called it their own.

‘Imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery.’ – Charles Caleb Colton

Dictionary.com says, “to imitate someone is to pay the person a genuine compliment…” However, not everyone takes it as such; because there’s a fine line between imitation and plagiarism. I’ve discussed this subject in a few of my blog posts, previously.

Mom didn’t plagiarize anyone – she was the ORIGINAL copycat. Nor did she plagiarize anyone’s recipes. She didn’t know what was really in the big food companies’ “secret recipes”. On the other hand, to imitate them at home, she could make some good, educated guesses for her own semblance of products.

Still, there’ve been instances, over the years, of others blatantly stealing Mom’s work – sometimes word-for-word and sometimes changing a few words or exchanging similar ingredients (like using “1/8 cup” instead of “2 TB” or using flour, salt and baking powder instead of self-rising flour) and then, passing it off as their own work!

Regardless of what Todd Wilbur would have you think about how he started being a “copycat cook”; long story, short… he actually got his start in the by ordering a copy of my mom’s cookbook, Secret Fast Food Recipes, in April 1989. He then proceeded to copy and even plagiarize her recipes.

Wilbur claims he was inspired by Mrs. Field’s publicized cookie recipe – but it was actually Mom’s work that inspired him! Eventually, he may have developed some of his own copycat recipes that were different from Mom’s – unless he was plagiarizing other people’s work as well!

Check out this great 2002 article about Mom at SanDiegoReader.com, How Can I Enjoy A Big Mac Without Actually Leaving Home; including an updated end response from a reader, about Todd Wilbur stealing from the ORIGINAL Secret Recipe Detective.

I was once asked, by a radio talk show host, who interviewed Mom regularly, why people like Todd Wilbur can get away with blatantly copying her work. The simplest answer I could find, at the time, was in an online article at PlagiarismToday.com called, Recipes Copyright And Plagiarism, by Jonathan Bailey (published March 24, 2015).

The author gave a wonderful, easy-to-understand explanation of plagiarism – specifically among recipe writers – and how difficult it is to prove, let alone prosecute, the theft of someone else’s original work, especially in recipes being passed off as one’s own work.

I still feel inspired to take up the challenge to write Mom’s biography, including a history of the “copycat recipes movement”. That’s kind of why I started this blog series, Mondays & Memories of My Mom, in the first place; to carry the torch for Mom’s legacy and to keep telling her story.

I want to reach those who remember Mom as the Recipe DetectiveTM and those who won’t admit to it because they’ve copied (or plagiarized) the ORIGINAL copycat, as well as the new, digital generation who probably doesn’t even know that there’s a history behind the “copycat recipes movement” and that it began with my mom, Gloria Pitzer!

The following is another commentary Mom wrote, specifically about developing the recipe to mimic Treacher’s fish batter and plagiarism.

MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, pp. 73-74)

ARTHUR TREACHER IMITATION

THE MOST EXCITING ATTENTION we received was the recognition given us by the Arthur Treacher people. At the time, the Arthur Treacher fish batter was unique. It was crispy and golden brown and very light. Everyone we talked to about fish wanted to know how to recreate the Treacher fish batter at home.

The original challenge came directly from Bob Allison’s ‘Neighbors’. The TV commercials advertised that it was ‘the meal you cannot make at home!’ I tried to disprove that. Finding the nearest Arthur Treacher restaurant [from ‘beautiful, downtown Pearl Beach’] was the real challenge.

With a friend, I drove into Mt. Clemens and located one. After dozens of tests and trying what I thought would be a good Oriental Tempura batter, again, I was disappointed. I tried every fish batter I could find, in every possible recipe source [at the time], over a 6- or 7-month period.

Finally, one day, by accident, I was preparing fish for our dinner – without any thought being given to Arthur Treacher’s batter – and on a lark, mixed together boxed pancake mix and some Club Soda.

Only because the plumber was working on the pipes and had turned off the water temporarily, did I resort to that Club Soda, so that I wouldn’t have to put off preparing dinner until the plumber was finished. Everybody had someplace to go that evening, so dinner had to be fast and on time.

Wouldn’t you know it! There, on the platter, was a mountain of the most beautiful, golden, crispy fish that you would have sworn came right from Arthur Treacher’s own kitchen! The next day, I retested the recipe and tried to work out some of the little flaws that we came across, before I could report back to Bob Allison and his ‘Neighbors’ over, then, WWJ-Radio, Detroit.

The biggest problem was how the coating kept falling off the fish during frying. It turned out, I had to correct two things – coating [the] moistened fillets, first, in plain flour, before dipping [them] into the batter, and then having the oil precisely at 385F. Oh! And a third point: Never use tongs – or the coating would break apart.

Once the fish recipe proved to be free of faults, I sent a copy of the recipe to Carol Haddix, the Food Editor of the Detroit Free Press [at that time], for her comments. I had talked with her, by phone, during the many weeks that I worked on perfecting the batter, trying to discover why the batter would sometimes fall off the fish; why the fish was, sometimes, greasy; and a number of other problems.

 She offered me the benefit of her experiences with frying fish and told me to get her a copy of the recipe, if I ever perfected it. When she published [my] recipe in the paper, it carried her approval as “on target”.

So, it does, therefore, have ample validation that the recipe is ours and does belong to “Secret Recipes”, in spite of the number of people I have had to confront on the issue over the years, regarding the plagiarism of it from our publications.

Because our recipes and newsletters are all “dated publications” and are subject to Interstate Commerce, we don’t use the same copyright procedures that book publishers use. We validate the originality by date of publication and back it up with radio and newspaper endorsements and involvement with the development and printing of the recipes for public use.

But, that one recipe really caught the attention of the press! The wire services picked up Carol Haddix’s story about us and the fish batter recipe and, before long, it appeared in over 100 papers…[and the rest is history!]

Imitating Arthur Treacher’s fish was not a quick development for mom, and others have tried to lay claim to this secret; but, in truth, Mom was the one to originally discover the “secret” ingredients AND process involved in developing a matching product at home.

Unlike a lot of the companies, whose products Mom imitated, Treacher’s people accepted the copycat imitation as the homage of flattery that it was meant to be. White Castle was another company that enjoyed Mom’s imitation of their slider. Hershey’s as well, in regard to her imitation of their Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

LAST THOUGHTS…

#NationalGratitudeMonth

As we approach Thanksgiving this week, keep in mind and at heart that November is National Gratitude Month! It’s so easy to take a few seconds to say, “Thank you!” There’s a great article at SeeBeyond.cc, Gratitude from the Heart and Mind [author unknown (Nov. 6, 2018)], that discusses, like the random acts of kindness, about which I wrote last week, how there are mental and physical benefits to being grateful, as well. Check it out!

IN CLOSING…

In honor of TODAY, being National Stuffing Day, here is Mom’s copycat recipe for Waldorf Astoria Stuffing Sidedish; as seen in her self-published cookbook…

#NationalStuffingDay

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

November observes, among other things… National Banana Pudding Lovers Month, National Family Stories Month, National Diabetes Month, National Fun with Fondue Month, National Gratitude Month, National Inspirational Role Models Month, National Life Writing Month, National Native American Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month, National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, National Pepper Month, National Pomegranate Month, National Raisin Bread Month, National Roasting Month, National Spinach and Squash Month, National Sweet Potato Awareness Month (See also February), and National Vegan Month!

Today is also… National Gingerbread Cookie Day!

Tomorrow is… National Cranberry Relish Day!

Wednesday, November 23rd is… National Cashew Day, National Eat a Cranberry Day, and National Espresso Day! Plus, as the day before Thanksgiving (for 2022), it’s also… Tie One On Day and the start of… National Deal Week (23rd-29th for 2022)!

November 24th is… National Sardines Day! Plus, as the fourth Thursday in November (for 2022), it’s also… Thanksgiving Day!

Friday, November 25th is… National Play Day with Dad, National Parfait Day, and National Shopping Reminder Day! Plus, as the day after Thanksgiving (for 2022), it’s also… National Day of Listening, National Native American Heritage Day, National Black Friday, National Buy Nothing Day, and National Maize Day!

November 26th is… National Cake Day! Plus, as the Saturday after Thanksgiving (for 2022), it’s also… National Small Business Saturday!

Sunday, November 27th is… National Bavarian Cream Pie Day and National Craft Jerky Day!

#TGIM

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

…47 down and 5 to go!

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Fast Food & Kindness

#HappyMonday to everyone! I personally look forward to all Mondays because they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!

#TheRecipeDetective

This is World Kindness Week, which is always the week of November 13th. While kindness should be practiced every day, world-wide, special attention is brought to it this week – whether you’re a giver or receiver, celebrate it!

The “giving season” has begun. Some kind-hearted people are once again paying for other people’s fast food orders, while sitting in line at the drive-thru. I’ve also seen multiple church groups pay for people’s gas at stations around the Detroit area. Kindness is in the air!

‘Happy is the person who has a good supply of the milk of human kindness and knows how to keep it from souring.’ – Gloria Pitzer

Wednesday is also celebrating, among other things, National Fast Food Day! Over 50 years ago, fast foods and junk foods were always getting a bad rap from the critics, regarding how unhealthy they were. But my mom figured out how to make those taboo foods at home – where she controlled the ingredients, taking the junk out of junk food.

Mom was a trailblazer in the 1970’s, when she carved a new niche in the food industry. She called her creations “copycat cookery” for “eating out at home”. The fact is, fast food recipes weren’t found in any cookbooks, back then. So Mom found ways to imitate our favorite fast foods at home, for less!

She looked forward, every day, to investigating all the possibilities there were to offer from this new platform! If it saved her household money, Mom wanted to share it with everyone, to help them save money too!

From 1974 to 2014, Mom shared her discoveries in her self-published cookbooks and newsletters, offering a free sampling (about 10-15) of her recipes, in exchange for a SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope), along with information on how to order her available cookbooks and subscribe to her newsletter.

The fast food recipes featured in her 1980 sample sheet are pictured above. You can also find them individually on the Recipes tab of this website. Mom wrote the following editorial about her humble beginnings with recipe requests and popular, fast-food, make-alike dishes.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

Excerpts by Gloria Pitzer, as seen in…

Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; January 2018, 1st Printing)

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

A MEAL BY ANY OTHER NAME

FAST FOOD RECIPES were not published in the best-sellers – and these were the restaurants where families were apt to frequent if they wanted a meal that was affordable! [In the 1970s] Paul and I could take all 5 of the children to Capri’s, an Italian restaurant down the road from us, in Pearl Beach.

We could feed the whole family for less than $10, providing we ordered the large pizza with only pepperoni and cheese on it and one soft drink for each of us. It was not for substance that we ate out. It was for entertainment.

We could take the kids to McDonald’s, and it did the same thing for us that going to the movies did for our parents. It was an affordable pleasure. It was a diversion from meatloaf and pot roast and peas and carrots.

It was a treat. We looked forward to it. We felt good about the experience and even better after it was over. It carried us through a long week of paying the utilities, insurance, house payments and car payments and grocery expenses.

When we had to have our 10-year-old station wagon repaired, we had to skip eating out that week. If one of us had to see the dentist, it might be 2 or 3 weeks before we could afford to eat out again. We made do with what we had… (p. 295)

THE “ORIGINAL 200”

MY LIST OF ‘SECRET RECIPES’ had grown to 200 and we offered them, on 4×6-inch cards [that I printed on my mimeograph], at $.25 each or 5 for a dollar. It was quite a packaging process to fill the combinations of orders, so I put all those recipes into a book.

It was going to be our only book on the subject, since most of the recipes were fast foods – but, as it turned out, it was only the first in a series of five books. After ‘Book One’ took off and became a very good seller, I did a Bicentennial American Cookery book as a limited edition and was pleased when the Henry Ford Library at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan ordered copies for their Bicentennial collection. That was July 1976… (p. 296)

WE WANTED OUR CAKE AND WE WANTED TO EAT IT, TOO!

WE WANTED TO EAT OUT at a price we could afford; and, when we couldn’t afford to eat out, we wanted to dine-in as if we were eating out! At the time, there were few recipes for this kind of cooking.

We wanted to spend less time preparing the foods and less money on the ingredients and still serve a dish to those who shared our table…that would be equal to – if not better than – anything we could buy in a restaurant or from a supermarket.

For all of these reasons, I have pursued the investigations of the food industry with the greatest joy and the utmost care, translating into recipes, those secrets that I have been able to decipher. (p. 297)

Over the decades, Mom offered free samples of some of her most requested recipes, starting with her “Original 200” collection. As the years went on, she changed up the free sample recipes she offered, as some also came from her most popular requested recipes, during the radio interviews she did around the country.

MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 55)

THE SAMPLE RECIPES

SIGHT-UNSEEN WAS HARDLY appropriate to ask people to buy a publication that they could not first examine. 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 perspective subscribers.

To this day [1989 – and continued through 2014], we still use the same procedure, and it has worked very well. We offer, for a self-addressed stamped envelope, 12-15 sample recipes and, on the other side of the page, all the [ordering] information on our books and newsletter.

Incidentally, Mom didn’t just investigate and develop imitations of popular restaurant dishes, fast food favorites, pantry-shelf products, etc. She was also a writer, and she filled her books and newsletters with almost as much food-for-thought editorials and food-for-the-soul inspirations as she did food-for-the-table recipes and kitchen tips.

Mom wanted her creations to be as much at home on the living room coffee table or on the bedside table as they were on the kitchen counter. Her books and newsletters were like no others, which put her writings in a unique position to be noticed – and that they were!

AGAIN, MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 92)

PEOPLE EXPECT US TO BE BETTER

WHENEVER SOMEBODY HAS MENTIONED to me that they are surprised that the newsletter or the recipe books include non-recipe material, I usually replied, ‘I’m surprised that you’re surprised!’ Food for the table and food for thought should, and often do, go hand-in-hand.

In our publications there will always be room for the kind of material that is humorous and uplifting – as the case may be. I respond easily to the unusual, if it has a beneficial influence on others and find it a joy to share such information. The response is always encouraging.

I am still hearing good comments on the little book we sent out in the fall of 1988, entitled ‘Good Thoughts And Things To Smile About’; which we did not sell, but GAVE to those people we felt we should express appreciation for their kindness and attention, either, to our work or to our family.

The little acts of overcoming the annoyance, impatience, indifference, apathy, that sometimes seem to be so much a part of our day – can make an enormous difference in the quality of our lives. This may not always seem easy, but each false tendency can be detected and rejected because it is wholly without foundation. Genuine love, caring, alertness and patience replace annoyance, indifference, apathy and impatience.

LAST THOUGHTS…

RandomActsOfKindness.org is a great website that promotes doing random acts of kindness as part of our normal routine. They offer a lot of inspiring stories about such acts, as well as scientific health benefits. Check out The Science Of Kindness, which claims it fuels personal energy and self-esteem, makes you happier, and is good for your heart; all of which helps you live longer.

It’s said that “practice makes perfect”. Practice also creates habits that, in turn, become our “norm”. In addition, habits generally take about a week to form, thus, I want to re-recommend Chrystle Fiedler’s kindness challenge, from “Why Being Kind Makes You Healthier” (as seen at… StarTribune.com; July 24, 2019). Chrystle wrote:

‘Try the seven-day kindness challenge. That means, do at least one act of kindness every day for seven days. Ground rules: Do something different each day; push yourself out of your comfort zone at least once and be sure one of your acts of kindness is anonymous — no one should ever find out who did it.’

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

IN CLOSING…

In honor of TODAY, being National Pickle Day, here’s Mom’s secret recipe for Bread And Butter Pickles; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 22). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)].

#NationalPickleDay

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

November observes, among other things… National Banana Pudding Lovers Month, National Family Stories Month, National Diabetes Month, National Fun with Fondue Month, National Life Writing Month, National Native American Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month, National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, National Pepper Month, National Pomegranate Month, National Raisin Bread Month, National Roasting Month, National Spinach and Squash Month, National Sweet Potato Awareness Month (See also February), and National Vegan Month!

Today is also… National Family PJ Day and National Spicy Guacamole Day! [NOTE: It’s also my birthday and the 48th anniversary (1974) of Mom’s first TV appearance – on “AM Detroit”, with host, Dennis Wholley; at WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, in Metro Detroit.]

Tomorrow is… National Bundt (Pan) Day, National Philanthropy Day, National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day, National Spicy Hermit Cookie Day, National Raisin Bran Cereal Day, and National America Recycles Day!

November 16th is… National Button Day and National Indiana Day! Plus, as the Wednesday (for 2022) of American Education Week (which is always the week before Thanksgiving), it’s also… National Educational Support Professionals Day!

November 17th is… National Baklava Day, National Take A Hike Day, National Homemade Bread Day! Plus, as the third Thursday of November (for 2022), it’s also… the Great American Smoke-Out!

November 18th is… National Vichyssoise Day! Plus, as the Friday before Thanksgiving, it’s also the start of… National Farm-City Week (18th-24th for 2022)!

Saturday, November 19th is… National Carbonated Beverage With Caffeine Day!

Sunday, November 20th is… National Peanut Butter Fudge Day and National Child’s Day! Plus, as the start of the week of Thanksgiving, it’s also… National Game & Puzzle Week and Better Conversation Week!

#TGIM

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

…46 down and 6 to go!

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Family Folklore

Happy November to everyone! Thank God Its Monday and, as such, #HappyMonday, as well. I personally look forward to all Mondays because they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!

#TheRecipeDetective

I love November! Among other things, it celebrates National Life Writing Month and National Family Stories Month! Every family is chuck-full of stories and folklore. In hindsight, I wish I could go back in time and record all the old, family stories I used to hear from my grandparents and their siblings whenever we gathered together for family reunions and various holidays.

I’m grateful to know some of my family’s folklore from the stories about which Mom wrote in her many self-published books and newsletters. I found more stories in the scrapbooks and shoe boxes of old letters and cards that Mom and Dad (and their moms) had saved from our relatives, over the decades.

Stories of how and what everyone was doing. Back then, they’d write to each other at least a couple times a year with the latest happenings in their families. Some relatives lived in Michigan, some were in Ohio, some were in California – but they all kept in touch with each other.

That was a few generations ago. These days we have social media platforms, like Facebook, with which to keep in touch, across the miles in almost “real time”. Mom used to share highlights of our family’s happenings in all of her publishings. She thought it was a natural thing to do, sharing her family’s news with her readers, because they were her family, too.

#NationalLifeWritingMonth

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

Eating Out At Home Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Sep. 1981, 12th Printing, p. 25)

LIVING AT HOME

(A story by Gloria Pitzer, based on family folklore.)

CROOKED PATH WAS a mid-western, sage brush hamlet, settled shortly before the Civil War by pioneers in covered wagons. Grandma was born there a few years after the war – the oldest daughter of her father’s second marriage.

Fortunately, for Grandma, her father dabbled in a little of this, a little of that; owning the saloon in town, a boarding house, and the town’s mercantile [store]. Her diary tells how she learned to cook at the boarding house, where she met Grandpa, who was renting a room there.

He married her in the parlor – much against her parents’ better judgement. On her 16th birthday and 17th birthday, they were blessed with the births their first two of eleven children – six boys and five girls. We were never quite certain what work Grandpa was in, but it took them from the plains of Nebraska to Ohio, to West Virginia and, eventually, to Michigan, with abbreviated residencies in Pennsylvania and Indiana.

From her ‘Recipe Journal’ notes, it seemed clear that Grandma’s ‘Backdoor Bakery’ supported the family’s income rather substantially for many years. Grandpa was probably a professional handyman from what we’ve been able to piece together from Grandma’s ‘Recipe Journal’. She made meticulous notes on recipes, to the effect: ‘This is the pie I baked from the California lemons that Gus Maxwell gave Pa for fixing his plow.’

[Another entry said:] ‘The hens Pa got in payment for the book cases he made for Judge Burns made a fine stew, good soup, and six loaves of chicken sausage.’ [And another said:] ‘The sack of brown sugar Yostman gave Pa for mortaring up his stove pipes made a good caramel pie – sent to ailing Bessie Forbes, down the road.’

From studying the quill-pen entries, I gather that work was the most essential part of life 80 years ago. By contrast, today’s workmanship is inferior to anything produced by the craftsman of yesterday. I wonder why people, today, are so unhappy with their own work – as if the tedium of labor is not really the problem.

Isn’t it typical that those who hold work to be without value are, themselves, empty? To imply, today, that work is without meaning is actually to also imply that life is without meaning – which most of our social influences do rather thoroughly.

Grandma’s cookery appears to let nothing go to waste. The broth from Judge Burns’ hens also made the gravy for the stew, the meat portion made the sausage and the bones from the carcass were ground fine and buried in the vegetable plot in the back of the firewood shed.

Apparently, Grandma and Grandpa were considered among the prosperous of their community because they were productive, although, never wealthy. At least, we do know that they were indeed happy. But the definition of ‘happiness’ in Grandma’s own handwriting was: ‘Happiness sometimes comes from ignorance – from not knowing how much better our life might be.’

One of the aunts confided that Grandma placed great importance upon the strength of her family and the respect they gave their father because her own life, with her parents, was less than memorable. Her life centered around her family – the heart of which seemed to be the kitchen. Their nourishment, however, was not [solely] food but [also] love that came from ‘actions’ rather than lip service!

#FamilyStoriesMonth

Today, families tend to keep in touch and up to date with each other electronically – mostly on social media platforms. I’ve known families who’ve created their own private websites with pictures and posts from the family members of special events happening in each other’s lives.

There are also websites like FamilySearch.org, GenealogyExplained.com, Ancestry.com, and USA.gov/genealogy; which help you find relatives and create family trees, too. Some are free and some cost money. One of these days, I’d love to try to find all of Mom’s family tree.

Dad’s parents were from neighboring counties in West Virginia. Both of their families kept long records of their ancestors, going back a couple hundred years, at least. I’ve previously printed a series of Mom’s family stories, which she shared in several of her books and newsletters – mostly about my dad’s mom’s family (the Knotts), their farm and Dad’s grandma’s “Backdoor Bakery”.

MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

Eating Out At Home Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Sep. 1981, 12th Printing, p. 3)

THE BACKDOOR BAKERY

(The family saga, as written by Gloria Pitzer, based on ‘kin-folk-lore’.)

GRANDMA NEVER INTENDED to bake for profit. She did it because Grandpa couldn’t keep a job. He was a talented man – restless and easily bored with the same job for very long.

When the oldest daughter, Vivian, went to work in the city at the hospital, she always had something good for lunch that Grandma had baked; and, after a number of the doctors and nurses in the employees’ lunchroom had sampled the baked goods, Vivian was taking home requests to bake special orders for a fair price.

Word spread very soon about Grandma’s baking talents. If somebody wanted a wedding cake or special coffee cakes for holidays or other celebrations, Grandma took the order and filled it promptly. They finally had to turn the back ‘washroom’, next to the kitchen, into a storage and working area to accommodate another stove and more counters and cupboards.

If someone came to the house, usually up the walk to the [front] porch and rang the pull-cord attached to the clapper on the milk-wagon bell, somebody would answer the door and direct the prospective ‘customer’ down the walk, around the flower beds, and along the gravel driveway to ‘the backdoor’.

Of course, at the back of the house, there were two doors. One went to the cellar and the other into the new kitchen room. So Grandpa hammered up a sign in the appropriate place reading: ‘This is the backdoor.’ – with an arrow pointing to it.

Soon afterward, Knowles (or Butch, as we called him – one of the older boys) added a hand-carved sign that said: ‘Bakery’. From then on, it was always called ‘The Backdoor Bakery’. And when they moved into a building in the business district of town, years later, Grandma picked one with a nice back entrance to a little traveled side-street so that the sign would be easily transferred to it.

LAST THOUGHTS…

Writing was always in Mom’s blood. She wrote and self-published a lot of “our family’s story”, in 1989, in her book, My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop. The book was basically about how she was led by a special calling to start her Secret RecipesTM legacy. Plus, being that it was a “family enterprise” (like Dad’s grandma’s “Backdoor Bakery”), it was a big part of our family’s story.

Do you know your family’s story? Every family has a story to tell – in fact, many stories. They can be pieced together from old pictures, cards, and letters or by tracing your ancestors’ roots through various online sources. It’s the perfect time to research and write about your family’s story, as it’s… National Life Writing Month and National Family Stories Month!

IN CLOSING…

In honor of November, being National Pepper Month, here’s Mom’s secret recipe for Stuffed Green Peppers; as seen in her self-published cookbook, Eating Out At Home (National Home News, St. Clair, MI; Sep. 1978, p. 22) – aka: “Book 3”.

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

November observes, among other things… National Banana Pudding Lovers Month, National Historic Bridge Awareness Month, National Diabetes Month, National Fun with Fondue Month, National Gratitude Month, National Inspirational Role Models Month, National Native American Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month, National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, National Pomegranate Month, National Raisin Bread Month, National Roasting Month, National Spinach and Squash Month, National Sweet Potato Awareness Month (also in February), and National Vegan Month!

Today is also… National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day!

Tomorrow is… National Cappuccino Day, National Harvey Wallbanger Day, and National Parents As Teachers Day! 

Wednesday, November 9th is… National Scrapple Day and National Louisiana Day!

Thursday, November 10th is… U.S. Marine Corps Birthday, National Forget-Me-Not Day, and National Vanilla Cupcake Day!

Friday, November 11th is… National Sundae Day and Veterans Day!

Saturday, November 12th is… National French Dip Day, National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day, and National Chicken Soup for the Soul Day!

Sunday, November 13th is… National Indian Pudding Day and World Kindness Day!

#TGIM

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

…45 down and 7 to go!