Happy Monday! I love Mondays. They’re my 52 Chances a year, for sharing Memories of My Mom with you.
Today is not only the last day of June but it’s also National Social Media Day. Social media gets a bad rep from time to time but, nowadays, that’s where it’s at, if you want to grow a small business. To do that, it’s important to, first, be noticed – and the road to notability runs through social media.
Engaging others and promoting your brand and skills, is a necessity. Almost everyone – from individuals to special groups to businesses to municipalities and governments – likes to engage and share things on some kind of social media platform (or several). Additionally, great customer service (online or in person) effects customer loyalty.
Social media has become an all-encompassing part of our daily lives – directly or indirectly. For example, the effect of reviews and recommendations on a business have come a long way over the past few centuries; especially this century, due to the internet and social media platforms being instantaneous and, for the most part, common place.
For centuries, most small businesses begin by getting people to know who they are, where to find them, and what they offer. The real-time accessibility of internet for the masses has evolved the methods for creating and building one’s brand.
With new social media platforms popping up all the time, there’s been an equally dramatic increase in people (including kids), branding themselves and launching their own home-based businesses. A new star is born on the internet almost every day. People and things “go viral” very quickly now. It can make you or break you.
Food or culinary “influencers” are popular social media content creators who’ve built and engaged a large following from their love of food. Like Mom, they use their platforms to share such things as recipes, cooking tips, restaurant reviews, and food photography. Food content creators or bloggers are always coming up with new and fantastic subject matter.
12 Tips on How to Become an Influencer, by Erica Santiago (May 22, 2023), says: “An influencer is a person with the ability to [sway] consumers to purchase a service or product by promoting, recommending, or using them on social media.”
Part of the job is knowing where to look for inspiration! There are many good sources out there, including cookbooks and magazines, as well as friends and family. Many are willing to share their secrets. Mom always said, “…Great recipes NEED to be shared!”
She was a food or culinary “influencer” long before social media made it a special thing. Mom used media platforms like television, radio, newspapers, and magazines to make herself and her copycat cookery concept well-known. She was a natural at it!
In the past few decades, especially after the pandemic restrictions (which unilaterally increased internet usage), people have been using the internet for just about everything – inspiration, information, entertainment, shopping, working, schooling, creating their own businesses, and more.
It’s an endless encyclopedia – a source of advice and tips for how to do just about anything. As new social media platforms continually pop up, more and more people are learning to turn their hobbies into incomes, brand themselves, and launch their own home-based businesses.
Building a consistent online presence on various social media platforms and through your own personal website and/or a blog is key. Purchasing your full name as a domain name (yourfullname.com) is one great way to do this.
Long before the “social media effect”, media influencers came by way of TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Mom didn’t have the advantage of the internet over 50 years ago, when she started branding herself and what she had to offer as a syndicated columnist (before she even started her Secret RecipesTM legacy).
She “snail” mailed her self-designed “branding” information sheets to various newspapers, magazines, and radio stations. Later, she branched out to television – first, locally in Detroit and Windsor (Ontario).
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, pp. 38-39)
THE HAPPY COOKER
[CIRCA 1973] I ENLISTED THE HELP of the children. I was taking in ironing at the time, at about $5 a basket and sometimes I would earn as much is $50 a week. The money was supposed to supplement Paul’s paycheck, which – as soon as we found could make ends meet, discovered somebody had moved the ends.
So I took what money I could from the ironing earnings and kept the paper, ink and other supplies in stock in order to produce what was necessary to complete the newsletter. I cut the stencils on my typewriter, added the drawings and fashioned a literary ‘silk purse out of a sow’s ear’, as my dad would’ve said.
The utility room, which was in the back of the house and looked out over the yard and the long driveway to the road was a perfect position to be in when it was time for Paul to arrive home from work at the end of the day.
I would post the kids at the window to watch for Daddy so that I could be able to get everything put away and out of sight. I could not tell him what I was doing until I could assure him that it was paying for itself and that I was not going to lose money.
For nine months I mimeographed, assembled and mailed out about 100 copies a month of my newsletter, the names of the subscribers having come from letters I kept from readers of my columns and from names and addresses given in other magazines where folks were looking for recipes.
I mimeographed my own business cards and, as I have already told you, had no qualities at all about cutting them out and inserting them into cookbooks in bookstores or department stores, leaving them in phone booths, in ladies’ restrooms in restaurants or wherever I might find a likely audience.
You must take every opportunity when you start out. Some ideas work. Some don’t. We tread a rather steep path when we attempt to wish on everyone what seems a solution to our own problems. It actually takes courage to think for oneself in a world which appears to have more than its share of profits of despair.
I wasn’t listening to any of them. I had my listening thoughts tuned into Angel messages that were leading me in a happier direction. I was never willing to give up. I’m still not!
[September 1974…] All I was doing was breaking even when Dennis Wholley, at channel 7 in Detroit, received a copy of my September newsletter of that first year of publishing.
He called, though, and asked me in the family to appear on one of his broadcasts of ‘A.M. Detroit’, which we did [November 14, 1974] – and which also opened up a brand-new door to opportunities I did not dream of encountering so quickly.
Of course, then, I did have to tell Paul all about the newsletter, what I had been doing and why I could not confide in him, knowing how skeptical he would have been about it. He practically agreed with me that, yes, he would’ve doubted that it would have had a future for us. Today, however, he’s willing to see it quite differently.
When I sent Dennis Wholley a copy of the newsletter, I also sent a copy to Bob Hynes, who then was host for the afternoon movie with CKLW-TV, channel 9, across the river [from Detroit] in Windsor, Ontario.
There was no response immediately from CK-TV, but the day after I appeared on Dennis Wholley’s program, Bob Hynes called and asked if we could visit his show on New Year’s Eve day (1974) and bring the entire family too.
The movie that day, I remember, was ‘Tammy and the Bachelor’ with Debbie Reynolds. [One of] his guests for the intermission was Lynn Redgrave, who was there to plug her new movie, ‘The Happy Hooker’.
When I introduced myself to Miss Redgrave in the studio that day, I said, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Redgrave. I understand you are the happy hooker. I’m the happy cooker!’
After Mom’s last book, Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – Best Of The Recipe Detective, went to print, in January 2018, I had to learn the “ins & outs” of using social media platforms, to help her promote it. Soon after, she passed away and then it became, for me, more about promoting her legacy, as the ORIGINAL Secret RecipesTM Detective, than the cookbook.
I’ve been writing these blog posts, in her memory, every Monday since mid-September 2018, trying to fine-tune the process along the way. I’m always learning new things about blogging and I want to re-share some of them with you. Mom always encouraged me to learn something new daily and to share.
I’m not an influencer, like Mom. I don’t care for having attention on me. However, every day I learn new things, as I continue this blogging journey. It’s a slow process, as I’m not tech-savvy. I just want to keep the focus on Mom and her unique influence, starting the copycat cookery craze.
I love blogging about her and various subjects about which she’d have written, whether I’m doing it for a few people or for thousands of people. I don’t even know how many people read my posts but I’ll keep writing them, regardless. I also love getting messages from those who’ve come across my writings and happily remember her Secret RecipesTM legacy.
LAST THOUGHTS…
Next Monday is the 44-year anniversary of one of Mom’s most influential TV appearances, which was on The Phil Donahue Show July 7, 1981. It aired worldwide for months, afterward, creating an avalanche of mail from people wanting Mom’s free recipes and information sheet.
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at therecipedetective@outlook.com. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
IN CLOSING…
In honor of Sunday, being National Fried Chicken Day, and today, still being June and National Country Cooking Month, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for “…”; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – Best Of The Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 93). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
I like to encourage social media sharing because Mom always believed that great recipes need to be shared! Thus, as always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share this.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
June celebrates… Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month, National Candy Month, National Camping Month, National Caribbean American Month, National Dairy Month, National Great Outdoors Month, National Iced Tea Month, National Papaya Month, and National Soul Food Month.
Tomorrow kicks off the month of July, which observes… National Baked Bean Month, National Culinary Arts Month, National Grilling Month, National Horseradish Month, National Hot Dog Month, National Ice Cream Month, National Independent Retailer Month, National Blueberry Month, National Picnic Month, and National Peach Month, among other things.
July 1st is also… National Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day and National Gingersnap Day.
Wednesday, July 2nd, is… National Anisette Day.
Thursday, July 3rd, is… National Fried Clam Day, National Eat Your Beans Day, and National Chocolate Wafer Day. Additionally, July 3rd – Aug. 11th is considered The Dog Days of Summer.
Friday, July 4th, is… of course, our Independence Day; plus, National Barbecued Spareribs Day and National Caesar Salad Day.
July 5th is… National Apple Turnover Day, National Graham Cracker Day, National Hawaii Day, and National Workaholics Day. Plus, as the first Saturday in July (for 2025), it’s… National Play Outside Day (which is the 1st Saturday of EVERY month).
Sunday, July 6th, is… National Hand Roll Day.
Have a great week!
…26 down and 26 to go! We’re already halfway through the year – don’t blink!
