October 2023 - Secret Recipes

October 30, 2023

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Happy Halloween Eve

#ThankGodItsMonday, again. Thus, #HappyMonday to all! I look forward to every Monday because they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!

#TheRecipeDetective

We’re almost at the end of October. Today’s Halloween Eve (aka: Devil’s Night) and tomorrow, Halloween will be kicking off October’s farewell party. Incidentally, October is also Halloween Safety Month.

Whether you celebrate Halloween by trick-or-treating through a neighborhood or hosting or attending a party – who doesn’t love dressing up and pretending to be someone (or something) else for one day/night? It brings out the kid in us.

There was a time when Halloween was revered as a demonic day. Just like every other holiday, it seems, we’ve Americanized it – into a celebration of imagination; embracing the scariness and thrills of old folklore stories. It’s probably the most creative holiday.

Halloween has become such a star of the fall celebrations, it’s surpassed Thanksgiving’s fame. You could say it’s probably just as popular as Christmas is among the winter celebrations. Retail marketing has launched many campaigns making it a fun (and profitable) celebration. Even Hollywood cashes in on the Americanized spirit of Halloween.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

No Laughing Matter, a syndicated column by Gloria Pitzer (no date on reprint)

[Originally printed in her syndicated Food For Thought column, circa 1969]

HALLOWEEN TRICK IS FINDING WEIRD ATTIRE

EVERY YEAR, I KEEP hoping somebody will do something about Halloween costumes. Shopping for really weird costumes poses a problem when we are still offered the same monotonous choices we were given back in the Neo-Saddle-Shoe days of [my] own tarnished youth.

Somehow, I’ll locate those boxes in the attic that contain all the rain-soaked, Donald Duck outfits, Bozo suits, Frankenstein masks with missing elastics, and the gypsy attires. And if I do, I’ll be able to clothe an entire hippie colony for at least a year.

Somewhere, I also have a box of threadbare pillowcases stained with licorice and lipstick that didn’t wash out. However, if I’m lucky, I won’t have to give our 12-year-old a bag this year because he says he’s ‘going to eat the stuff right on the spot!’

And, if it’s an especially good year, he promises to save me all the chocolate Easter bunnies he gets. Mike told me not to worry about getting his sister a mask, ‘since Debi doesn’t need one!’

I’ve decided their father can take them trick-or-treating this year! I’m still quite hurt from the tactless comment made by the neighbor at the end of the block, who offered me the candy corn last year because he thought I had a sensational costume. Trouble was, I wasn’t wearing one! I looked like an accident, going somewhere to happen!

‘That’s my mom!’ Mike told the man. ‘But if you think she looks scary now, you should see her in the morning!’ That kid is going to get underwear for Christmas! In fact, a few more comments like that may turn me against honesty, altogether.

Actually, some of the costumes the kids have dreamed up, themselves, have shown more ingenuity than the manufacturers who produce kids’ costumes that are somehow programmed to self-destruct before a mother can find a safety pin to fasten the neck opening.

You’d think, for $2.98, they would at least put gripper snaps or zippers or supply you with safety pins on those skimpy outfits. Do they care that a mother cannot locate a safety pin when she needs one, without summoning the aid of Mannix and Mr. Keane, Tracer of Lost Persons?

Trying to find safety pins for Halloween costumes in October is as likely as finding D batteries for Christmas toys in December! Naturally, all my good suggestions went out the window, so the kids tried to put their own costumes together and I’m supposed to act surprised, when they come calling at our house Halloween night.

Now, maybe I won’t be able to recognize my offspring, but one thing’s for sure… I can certainly identify my sheets! Or, if you’ll excuse the pun – they don’t have a ghost of a chance of fooling me!

Communities and local media sources encouraged families to take the scariness out of what was once known as “All Hallows Eve”. Americanizing the holiday put the focus on FUN, with activities and treats for everyone; while still enjoying bonfires and costumes, but as parties to strengthen families and community ties – not to ward off evil spirits.

By the 20^th century, parades, pumpkin festivals, pumpkin-carving events, scary movies, corn mazes, haunted houses, and neighborhood “trick-or-treating” were incorporated into the mix of fun (and frightening) activities, for celebrating Halloween.

The 21^st century added “Trunk-or-Treating” parking lot gatherings for safe and fun community events geared toward the family. Simultaneously, it took haunted houses to a whole new level of bone-chilling thrills and terror, for those who like to indulge. Check out the Detroit area’s own Eloise Asylum, voted #5 in the country and #1 in the state.

[NOTE: To learn more about the origins of Halloween and how it came to be what we celebrate now, check out History.com.]

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – TV Talk Shows

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

#TheRecipeDetective

Along with October being, in relation to Mom, National Women’s Small Business Month, National Work and Family Month, Positive Attitude Month, Self-Promotion Month, National Book Month, and National Cookbook Month, among many other things; TODAY is National TV Talk Show Host Day (and Johnny Carson’s birthday).

#TVTalkShowHostDay

Mom found much success, promoting her recipes on radio talk shows, first (and last). During her last 20 years in business, that was all in which she indulged, for promoting her latest imitations. But it was the TV talk shows, on which she appeared, during her first 20 years in business, that catapulted her unique recipes nationally and worldwide.

Throughout the first two decades of being the Recipe Detective^TM, Mom demonstrated her talents for imitating some of our favorite “junk foods” – like KFC’s fried chicken, Oreo cookies, Hostess Twinkies, Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookies, and more – on national TV talk shows like the Phil Donahue Show, ABC’s Home Show, CNN News, and PM Magazine.

The first television talk show, on which Mom appeared to discuss her innovative recipe ideas, was a Detroit program called A.M. Detroit, hosted by Dennis Wholley [WXYZ-TV, Channel 7 (Detroit, MI)]. That episode was recorded on November 14, 1974 (my 10^th birthday).

From that appearance, Mom was contacted to be interviewed on New Year’s Day (1975) by Bob Hines on CKLW-TV, Channel 9 [Windsor, Ontario (Canada)]. Later, on Christmas Eve (1976), she was also interviewed, at our home in Algonac, by Jack McCarthy of WXYZ-TV, Channel 7 (Detroit, MI).

During the 1980-1981 winter season, while we were living in St. Clair, Mom had another at-home-interview – this time with PM Magazine’s Detroit TV crew. She also appeared on Detroit’s Noon News show, on WDIV-TV, Channel 4 (Detroit, MI) that same winter. Those appearances brought her additional media attention and her fan base quickly and steadily grew.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p.296)

[IN THE BEGINNING]

IT WAS THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME to launch a new business. The unemployment rate was terribly high. There was a newsprint paper shortage. There was a gasoline shortage. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least try to have my own publication.

It was something I had always wanted to do. I couldn’t tell Paul. I knew that! He would have been far too practical to have approved of my starting my own paper, so I enlisted the help of our children. I was taking in ironing at the time, at $5 a basket, and sometimes earned as much as $50 a week.

The money was supposed to supplement Paul’s paycheck, which – as soon as we found could make ends meet – we discovered somebody had moved the ends. So, I took what money I could from the ironing earnings and bought a mimeograph. I kept it in a big box in the utility room under my sewing table.

Paul would hardly pay attention to what I wanted him to think was only sewing paraphernalia. For nine months, I mimeograph, assembled and mailed out about 100 copies a month of my newsletter. Bill and Mike helped assemble it and Debbie help me test the recipes and address the copies.

I don’t know how we ever kept it from Paul for that long, but I couldn’t tell him what I was doing until I could assure him that I could make a profit. All I was doing was breaking even. Then Dennis Wholley, at Channel 7 in Detroit, called and said somebody had sent him a copy of my newsletter.

He was tickled with the crazy names I gave the recipes and the home-spun format. He wanted the entire family to be his guests on his ‘A.M. Detroit’ show on November 14 [1974] – which was also our Laura’s birthday.

I couldn’t keep it from Paul any longer, because I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to promote the paper on a popular local television show. He took it quite well, considering the state of shock he must have been in at my announcement.

But we took all 5 of the kids with us across town, in a blizzard yet, with Laura having a bout of carsickness during the hour’s drive there. And, during that experience, we met Coleman Young, the recently elected mayor of Detroit, who was also a guest on the show.

All of Pearl Beach must have been tuned into ‘A.M. Detroit’ that morning, with half of the population gathered at the Pearl Beach post office, watching the portable set there. It brought us many new orders for our newsletter, and it wasn’t long before CKLW’s Bob Heinz asked us to appear on his show on New Year’s Day.

We, again, took the family [to Detroit and] over to Windsor, Ontario – across the Detroit River – for another exciting experience and hundreds of letters that followed, wanting to subscribe to the newsletter.

By that time, Paul was giving me every evening of his time when he came home from his own job at the sign company, plus all the weekends just to fill the orders. My list of ‘Secret Recipes’ had grown to 200 and we offered them, on 4 x 6” 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’ – [as it was considered a ‘fad’ that wouldn’t last long] but, as it turned out, it was only the 1^st of a series of, then, 5 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…

Nevertheless, it was her FIRST appearance on “The Phil Donahue Show” (July 7, 1981) that brought her world-wide attention. Our small family business was inundated with over a million letters requesting her free recipes and ordering information for her books and newsletters.

For months, following Mom’s 1981 appearance on the Donahue Show, the episode re-aired around the country and around the world and we were slammed with mail. Our small, family operation had to bring in a lot of extra help, including some of my high school friends, to assist with the extra mailings we had to prepare and send out.

Mom’s friend and radio talk show host, Dick Syatt [RKO-Radio (Boston, MA)], once told her, in regard to the tremendous response we received from that Donahue Show episode and the diabolical toll it took on our family: “Hell is God giving you what you thought you wanted!”

We mailed out hundreds of thousands of Mom’s “free recipes and product-ordering information” sheets, in exchange for the hundreds of thousands of self-addressed stamped envelopes that poured in, per the offer announced on the show. We also were mailing out thousands more newsletter issues, from all of the new subscriptions that soon followed.

As chaotic as it was, in the end, Mom recognized that the Donahue Show opened a lot of doors for her that might never have happened, otherwise. It brought her unique style of “copycat cookery” to the attention of MILLIONS of new eyes, worldwide, fairly quickly (and that was before household internet). She felt very fortunate and grateful.

Mom’s small, family business boomed but the experience nearly crushed our household and the cottage-style dining room table operation of Secret Recipes^TM. All parties involved eventually survived. However, Mom swore she’d never do another national TV show again.

Nevertheless, in February 1988, Mom appeared on ABC’s Home Show with host, Rob Weller; as it was set up by her friend, Carol Duvall, the famous crafter. The show surprised Mom, with having her meet Wally Amos, in-person, during the episode! Her SECOND appearance on the Home Show was three years later, on March 19, 1991.

Over 33 years ago (Memorial Day, 1990), a CNN News crew came out to our St. Clair home to record an interview with Mom. Later that year, in October, Mom appeared on the Kelly & Company show [WXYZ-TV, Channel 7 (Detroit, MI)] with the hosts, husband and wife team, John Kelly and Marilyn Turner. Her SECOND appearance was May 8, 1991.

In 1993, Mom was invited back to the Donahue Show. She and Dad agreed, only if the show would NOT share their contact information. Inadvertently, because of that, the show received more requests for the transcript than for any other episode, obliterating the previous record. Regardless, people found us and we were overrun again with mail.

LAST THOUGHTS…

Mom also agreed to do an infomercial as the Recipe Detective^TM, in 1993, with Guthie-Renker Corp. It was set up like a TV talk show, called ‘Ask Mike’. It was similar to Phil Donahue’s and Rob Weller’s interviews and cooking demonstrations, and included an appearance by Wally Amos, too.

But they wanted to change the look of her available books (and there was other drama, as well). It turned out to be a big disappointment and a really unpleasant endeavor for, both, Mom and Dad. The whole thing was produced and directed by Positive Response Television. The family was given copies (on VCR tapes) but it never aired, publicly.

Afterward, Mom refused to do anymore TV talk shows; accepting only newspaper, magazine, and radio talk show interviews. She never regretted that decision, turning down offers from big TV talk shows like The Rosie O’Donnell Show and The Late Show, with David Letterman.

And, as much as she loved Johnny Carson, Mom even turned down an appearance on the Tonight Show. However, she did become friends with fellow Michiganders, Pam and Ed McMahon… And never regretted her decision.

IN CLOSING…

In honor of TODAY, being National Boston Cream Pie Day (and it’s still National Dessert Month), here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for “Boston Cream Pie Ala Fast”; as seen in one of her first few, self-published cookbooks… The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1977, p. 8).

#NationalDessertMonth

#BostonCreamPieDay

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

#NationalBookMonth

#NationalCookbookMonth

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

Today is also… National Mole Day!

Tomorrow is… National Food Day, National Bologna Day, and United Nations Day!

Wednesday, October 25^th is… National Greasy Food Day!

Thursday, October 26^th is… National Tennessee Day, National Pumpkin Day, and National Mincemeat Day!

October 27^th is… National American Beer Day, Navy Day! Plus, as the last Friday in October (for 2023), it’s also… National Breadstick Day!

October 28^th is… National Chocolate Day! Plus, as the fourth Saturday in October (for 2023), it’s also… National Make A Difference Day! Additionally, as the last Saturday in October (for 2023), it’s also… National Trick or Treat Day!

Sunday, October 29^th is… National Oatmeal Day!

#TGIM

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

…43 down and 9 to go!

October 16, 2023

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Women And Family Businesses

#ThankGodItsMonday and #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

Mom had an undeniable gift for writing, which began at a young age. Her dedication to writing began in 1946, after seeing the Warner Brothers movie, Devotion, about the Bronte sisters. That’s when she began journaling seriously, on a daily basis; mostly writing about her life, dreams, and faith.

Mom filled journal after journal, for more than 70 years, with her ideas, feelings, and observations; from the time she was 10 years old until she physically couldn’t, shortly before she passed away in January 2018. Writing was so much more than a hobby or vocation, to Mom. It was definitely a DEVOTION!

#WorkAndFamilyMonth

You could say writing was in Mom’s blood, as her dad’s family published the newspaper for the Union Mills-Cromwell area of Indiana during the late 19^th century. Mom, herself, worked in the newspaper industry for over a decade, before quitting to develop her own small, family operated, recipe business, in the early 1970s.

Mom was very creative at whatever she attempted. I wish I had half of her talent. She wore so many hats in our family and in the “family enterprise”. For our family, she was the cook, housekeeper, chauffer, doctor, seamstress, counselor, mentor, teacher, and so much more.

#WomensSmallBusinessMonth

#SelfPromotionMonth

Within her small business, Mom was the recipe developer, author, illustrator, layout creator, publicist, promotion specialist, public speaker/lecturer and, again, so much more! She didn’t do it all by herself, as she also employed me and my siblings to help; and, later, Dad.

As a semi-modern, yet somewhat old-fashioned housewife-turned-homemaker-turned-entrepreneur, during the 1970s and amidst the Women’s Liberation Movement, Mom felt extremely blessed to be able to write for a living – and to be able to do it from home.

#NationalBusinessWomensWeek

She always said, she made a living with her writing, but it was her writing that made living worthwhile! By the way, Sunday kicked off the beginning of National Business Women’s Week, plus it’s still National Women’s Small Business Month, too. Women entrepreneurs and small family businesses actually run in our family, in both sides of my parents’ ancestors.

In honor, this week, I wanted to share some of Mom’s stories about “Grandma’s Backdoor Bakery”. This series of stories, about which Mom wrote over 40 years ago, are based loosely on family fables that were passed down (and embellished) through a couple of generations. I call it her “kin-folklore”.

[NOTE: The following part of “The Backdoor Bakery” saga (pictured below) – from Eating Out At Home Cookbook (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Sep. 1981, 12^th Printing, p. 24) – includes recipes for “Saturday Bread Dough” and “West Virginia Bread”. These were posted once before, in a previous blog, and can also be found on the Recipes tab of this website.]

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Michigan Apples

As usual, #ThankGodItsMonday again. Thus, #HappyMonday to all. I look forward to every Monday! They’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!

#TheRecipeDetective

#NationalAppleMonth

I LOVE OCTOBER! The trees are bursting with fiery colors, farmers are harvesting their crops, corn mazes have been cut for fun autumn entertainment, houses and yards are decked out in Halloween decorations, and the apple cider mills are packed every weekend. By the way, October is also National Apple Month, among other things.

Apples are one of the largest and most valuable fruit crops grown in Michigan. Some of the most popular varieties are Gala, Fuji, Honeycrisp and Red Delicious – these are also among the best apples for making cider. It takes about 20 pounds of apples (roughly 30-40 apples, depending on size) to produce one gallon of cider.

The state of Michigan is not the biggest producer of apples in the U.S. – that honor goes to Washington, as we come in third, behind New York. However, I read somewhere that Michigan slices more apples than any other state – mostly for apple pies, which are an all-American staple.

Incidentally, Michigan’s unofficial “State Dessert Pie” is a toss-up between apple and cherry – depending on where you poll. The Traverse City area (and the northern Michigan region) is famous for its cherry crops (and wine)! However, apples are the more abundant crop throughout the state, over all.

#WorkAndFamilyMonth

Michigan has about 775 family-run apple orchards and more than 60 cider mills. More than a dozen apple festivals are anticipated, all around the state, for next weekend.

All of my children agree that this time of year always reminds them of when my mom and dad used to take them and my sister’s kids to the Ruby Tree Farm & Cider Mill, a few towns away.

By the way, the fall in which we moved from Algonac to St. Clair, Mom and Dad took me and my sister, Cheryl, to see the famous tree farm and cider mill. Mom was very impressed with their pumpkin pie and created a wonderful imitation of it.

Since this is National Dessert Month, below is a copy of that recipe, as seen in Mom’s self-published cookbook, The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes, Revised (National Home News, St. Clair, MI; November 1978, p. 24).

#NationalDessertMonth

I know it thrilled my parents to go to the tree farm just as much as it thrilled the kids. We all loved the big cafeteria style dining hall where we would get lunch and watch them press the apples into cider. There was another area where we always stopped to watch them make fresh donuts, too.

In a separate building, they sold old fashioned candy and souvenirs, as well as antiques. In that building, a large, old, player piano would usually be playing something festive. Dad would buy each of the kids some candy and sit with them on the hearth of the big fire place near the piano while Mom shopped.

My kids favorite memories there, besides spending time with their grandparents and having lunch in the big hall, included riding on an old fashion fire truck, walking through the petting zoo, riding the ponies, going on a hay ride around the farm, and picking out their own pumpkins to carve at home (plus, baking the seeds – see Mom’s secret recipe below).

Ruby’s local gem was a big tourist attraction for many decades. It first opened in 1956 and grew to hundreds of acres of trees and fall fun. It was very popular for its Christmas trees, November through December. So many families would traditionally go there, every year, to cut down their own perfect tree. The Reuters loved bringing families joy.

Unfortunately, after the owner passed away in 2009, his family decided to retire the business and everything was eventually auctioned off. They continued to sell through the rest of the property’s Christmas trees for another six years, until the farm permanently closed in 2015. It will always be remembered as the small family business with a big heart.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

Gloria Pitzer’s Mixed Blessings – Recipes & Remedies (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; March 1984, p. 15)

SIMPLE COMFORTS

COOKING IS ONE OF THOSE personal accomplishments that afford us all the opportunity to express ‘talent’. We love being approved of. In fact, we eat it up! It’s the little pat on the back that gives us the incentive to continue trying. And where else, but in the kitchen, can you try to win approval with such satisfying results!

I’m very partial to my kitchen because it is the one place in our home where I feel the most comfortable! Whether I’m there alone, working on a recipe, or sitting at my desk, looking for inspiration on a new article I’m writing, or sharing a cup of coffee with a neighbor or a friend, who’s dropped by – it’s my favorite room!

I have a desk in the kitchen right next to the [glass] door-wall that overlooks the yard. Our daughter, Debbie, and our son-in-law, Jim, gave me a flowering Crab [Apple] tree last Mother’s Day, which they planted right in the middle of the yard.

I can enjoy it’s flowers each spring; also the very long bare, red branches during the autumn and it’s snow-covered limbs all winter. It’s my sundial, by which I observe the seasons and the changes involved with this natural wonder.

While the Scotch pines around this little tree never change, never go through the transition of bud to blossom to barren branches and then buds again, I can see the contrasts that are parallel to our own personal predicaments…

I’ve spent my entire life being a writer. It’s not what I do, but what I am. I love every minute of it, and by writing about what I have come to know best – cooking – it occurs to me that having a desk in my kitchen was awfully appropriate.

Mind you, I’m not all that crazy about cooking. It’s by default rather than decision that I have learned more about it than any other skill I’ve attempted.

#RhubarbMonth

When we lived in Algonac, Mom had a raised garden bed, about 8-ft square. I remember helping her harvest the strawberries, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I also recall picking rhubarb, apples, and pears from our little orchard along the driveway, with which she made jams, pies, and cobblers. By the way, October is also National Rhubarb Month.

During the first couple years of writing and self-publishing her newsletter, Mom included many gardening tips each month. Eventually that went to the wayside, along with some other “segments”, to make room for more copycat cookery. As Mom’s recipe business continually grew during the 1970s, she incessantly less time to spend on a garden.

I enjoyed learning how to garden from Mom, just as she had learned about it from my grandma. I loved harvesting the fruits and vegetables, from which she created so many wonderful dishes and desserts. Her strawberry-rhubarb pie was one of my favorites! [NOTE: A sugar-free version that Dad really loved, is on the recipes tab of this website.]

Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Experiences

Happy October! Thank God Its Monday, again; thus, happy Monday to all, as well. I personally look forward to Mondays since they’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!

#TheRecipeDetective

#NationalBookMonth

#NationalCookbookMonth

#NationalNewspaperWeek

Happy National Book Month and National Cookbook Month. These are just a couple of reasons why I love October so much. October is also the threshold for the holiday season, throughout the next three months, and the holidays go hand-in-hand with food – which leads us back to it being National Book Month and National Cookbook Month.

It also happens to be National Newspaper Week. I mention this because Mom’s Secret Recipes business and her Recipe Detective persona may never have come to fruition if it had not been for her first being a food columnist at a local newspaper. That’s where her copycat cookery concept originated.

Mom’s success as the Recipe Detective basically stemmed from a series of experiences – meant-to-be’s, she would call them. Experiences steered her talents and love for writing in the direction of newspaper columns (and cartoons), newsletters, books and cookbooks – all geared toward the semi-traditional, semi-Women’s-Lib homemakers, like herself.

This week, I have a lot of Mom’s own memories to share with you, regarding her experiences in developing her small, family business. She often wrote about the events that she (and Dad) went through, to get where they were, doing what they were meant to be and doing. She also wrote regularly about her faith in her Higher Power leading the way.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 8)

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

THE SECRET RECIPE REPORT

ALTHOUGH I’VE BEEN WRITING longer than I’ve been cooking, the notion to investigate the secrets of the food industry didn’t become a full-time labor-of-love until I was working for a small-town newspaper [about 1971.]

As the only ‘married lady’ on the staff, I was always assigned the food page and recipe column, and I was willing to try the dishes at home and present a column or article about their results to the paper.

When you work for a small-town paper, you wear many hats. You set type, sell advertising, proof read, design headlines, create art work, campaign for subscribers; and, before you know it, you acquire skills you didn’t even know you possessed.

The food department became such a welcomed relief from the local politics that I poured my heart and soul into it, learning some of the essentials of good cooking purely by default! Everything went well until I initiated an idea to create advertising interest among local restaurants.

It started when I answered a reader’s request in my column for a recipe like McDonald’s ‘Special Sauce’. I knew it was a kissin’ cousin of a good Thousand Island dressing, so the development of the recipe wasn’t difficult.

The response from our readers was so appreciative that I contacted local restaurants for their advertising in exchange for my printing one of their recipes and menu in my column and a complimentary review of their place.

No one was willing to part with any of their ‘secrets’! So, I decide to see if I could ‘guess’ how they prepared their specialties of the house. I came across a hotel in town that advertised ‘homemade’ cheesecake, and I felt they should be telling their customers ‘home-baked’.

The difference to the public is very slight, but they wanted the public to ‘think’ it was homemade, from scratch, when it was, in fact, simply taken from a carton and popped into the oven like brown-and-serve rolls.

That was before our ‘truth in menu’ laws, but no one at the paper wanted to make an issue out of it. The restaurant insisted it was an old family recipe. I said the cheesecake smacked of commercial automation, stainless steel computerized kitchens and the family they referred to was probably that of Sara Lee!

At any rate, that was when I parted company with the paper and set out on my own to create the ‘Secret Recipe Report’, which I dearly miss now.

#WomensSmallBusinessMonth

#WorkAndFamilyMonth

#SelfPromotionMonth

October is also special because it’s National Women’s Small Business Month, National Work and Family Month, and National Self-Promotion Month. By the way, family values – honesty, integrity, empathy, kindness, responsibility, commitment, etc. – are among the many pros of doing business with small, family owned and operated companies.

From day one, Mom’s copycat recipe collection continually grew. There were always new challenges for her, as the requests from her fans grew, too. The growing success of her copycat cookery concept led to massive opportunities for her, promoting her new discoveries on radio and TV talk shows, all over North America.

In her first series of cookbooks, Mom shared over 1,400 imitations she developed, covering 59 restaurants (from Arby’s to Yummyland), 83 brands of grocery products (from A&P to Wonder), 22 famous hotel chains and inns, 15 favorite candies and carnival eats, 12 department stores and cafeterias, as well as treats from 7 various tourist hot spots!

Mom released a new book every year except in 1981, as the project she was working on at that time had to be put on hold while the family business was inundated by over a MILLION requests for what she was already offering, following her FIRST appearance on the Phil Donahue Show in July of that year!

AGAIN, MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

Various excerpts on “Experience”, by Gloria Pitzer; as seen in …

My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989)

THE EXPERIENCES

THE EXPERIENCES WE’VE ENCOUNTERED in building this family enterprise of ours, this cottage industry…has occurred while distributing recipe secrets through radio broadcasting and newspaper exposure and our own publishing efforts. If someone can benefit from our experiences, all the better. Mostly, though, this is just a story of our family, our five children…and how we made a dent in the hard shell of the publishing industry. (p. 2)

DOING SOMETHING THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

ALL OF THIS SHOULD have started somewhere at a particular place in my life because most important things do have memorable beginnings. But I’m hard put to come up with that one event, that singular moment, when I knew that our Secret Recipes^TM would touch other people, not just across the country but [also] across the world. And, in doing so, would make a difference. That’s what really counts – doing something that will make a difference for the good of others. (p. 7)

SUCCESS

AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK…I am asked how I got into this business, how it all started and how somebody else can write their own book [or newsletter] and get it published. If there were a formula for our kind of success…I would be happy to share the information… (p. 14)

SUCCESS AND LONGEVITY

THE EXPERIENCES THAT COMPRISE the success and longevity of our Secret Recipes^TM include some very wonderful people who have gone out of their way to make it easy for us to present our work to the public…[those were some to whom I shared ‘thank you’ notes in some of my past blog posts.]

Over the years, it has been, not a job, but a joy to continue investigating the secrets of the food industry, combining this information and recipes with the logic of the heart, the food for thought as well as food for the table. It continues to arouse interest and delight in, both, our readers and radio listeners all over the country, as well as the world! (p. 15)

EXPERIENCES & PREPARATION

THE EXACT CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, in which each of my writing experiences have occurred, are not clear in my memory now. However, each step [and] each experience was, on second thought, [neither] a delay nor a setback, as I used to believe. It was, instead, only preparation and the gathering of experience…

[Other than myself,] there has been no ‘real’ publisher, no public relations agent or the expensive efforts of professional promoters. [Their] ideas of how to publicize what I have to offer would only conflict with what I felt should be done.

My cup runneth over because I have been blessed with an enthusiasm for promoting my own work and have been twice-blessed with the support and partnership of, probably, the most honest man in the world; who knows, from his own valuable working experiences, exactly how to manage and protect this enterprise.

All of the blessings I derived from having stumbled my way through the [not so] meaningless jobs of the many newspapers for which I once worked, eventually paid tremendous dividends, as I was able to put those learned skills into practice with this family enterprise of ours. Each bit of experience contributed to what I would, later, be able to do without the help of professionals. (p. 20)

EXPERIENCES & RADIO

WHILE THE CRITICS SNICKERED that my fast food imitations would run its unhealthy course in a short while [and] that my ability to turn out copy would, soon, be exhausted; I continued to look to a Divine Source for [my] daily supply of, both, energy and ideas. I have never yet been disappointed or without something good to share with our family of readers and our radio listeners. My cup does, indeed, run over! (p. 21)

COPYCAT

IF SOMEONE WERE TO COPY our so-called “success”, I could give them no blueprint for that condition. Each one of the little steps that we had to take to develop the kitchen table activity into a professional business operation, are like the grains of sand that the oyster requires to form a pearl. (p. 25)

LAST THOUGHTS…

‘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 Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 15)

IN CLOSING…

In honor of October, also being German-American Heritage Month, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for Frankenmuth Hot German Potato Salad, Like Zender’s; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 40). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret Recipes^TM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3^rd Edition)].

#GermanAmericanHeritageMonth

#NationalBookMonth

#NationalCookbookMonth

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

The week of October 1^st is… Active Aging Week. Plus, the first week of October is also… National Chili Week, National Spinning & Weaving Week, and International Post Card Week!

Today is… National Fried Scallops Day! Plus, as the first Monday in October (for 2023), it’s also… National Consignment Day and National Child Health Day! Additionally, the first full Mon.–Fri. work week [2^nd-6^th for 2023] is… Customer Service Week! Moreover, the first Mon-Sun week [2^nd-8^th for 2023] is… Financial Planning Week!

Tomorrow, as the first Tuesday in October (for 2023), is… National Eat Fruit At Work Day!

October 4^th is… National Cinnamon Bun Day, National Taco Day, and National Vodka Day! Plus, as the first Wednesday in October (for 2023), it’s also… National Walk to School Day and National Pumpkin Seed Day!

Thursday, October 5^th is… National Rhode Island Day, National Do Something Nice Day, and National Apple Betty Day!

October 6^th is… National Orange Wine Day, National German-American Day, and National Noodle Day! Plus, as the first Friday in October (for 2023), it’s… World Smile Day, too!

October 7^th is… National Chocolate Covered Pretzel Day, National Frappe Day, and National Inner Beauty Day! Plus, as the first Saturday of October (for 2023), it’s also… National Play Outside Day!

Sunday, October 8^th is… National Fluffernutter Day and National Pierogi Day!

#TGIM

…40 down and 12 to go!