Tag: CleanOffYourDeskDay

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Mondays & Memories of My Mom – It All Starts Somewhere

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

#NationalHobbyMonth

#NationalMentoringMonth

January celebrates, among other things, National Hobby Month and National Mentoring Month! A very popular New Year’s resolution is to start a new hobby. In fact, that was listed as #4 by a report from KrisTV.com/news, called the Top 10 Most Common New Year’s Resolutions… (Dec. 30, 2021) – for 2022. It all starts somewhere!

Mom’s original writing ambitions began when she was a young girl, influenced by a movie about the Bronte sisters. Like others, Mom wanted to write a great American novel. “The best laid plans…” comes to mind. Nonetheless, Mom believed that Devine Intervention detoured her to write about other things, while never steering her away from writing, itself.

Every success Mom had in writing, as a girl and young adult, was usually centered around cooking and homemaking – from the many essay contests that she entered and won to her multiple careers in the newspaper field, writing and syndicating her own columns and cartoon panels; followed by writing and publishing her own newsletter, cookbooks and food-for-thought books.

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES

Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 6)

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

IT ALL STARTED WITH…

I DO, WITH RECIPES, what rich little does with voices! Imitating the ‘Secret Recipes’ of the food industry has been an exciting experience for me. The critics felt that ‘fast foods’ and restaurant dishes were not worth the effort to duplicate at home, when you can just as easily buy the products already prepared!

The critics who contend that ‘fast foods’ are ‘junk foods’ and not good for us, have probably never prepared these foods themselves. Certainly, they have no access to the closely guarded recipes from the food companies that created these dishes, as there are only a few people in each operation that are permitted the privilege of such information! So, 99% of the critics’ speculations are based on their own opinions.

To know what these dishes contained, they’d have to be better chemists than I, as I have tested over 20,000 recipes with only the finished product as my guide to determine what each contained. ‘Fast foods’ are not ‘junk foods’ unless they’re not properly prepared. Any food that is poorly prepared (and just as badly presented) is junk!

Unfortunately, ‘fast food’ has carried a reputation, by default, of containing ingredients that are ‘harmful’ to us. Yet, they contain the same ingredients as those foods served in the ‘finer’ restaurants with wine stewards, linen tablecloths, candlelight, coat-check attendants, and parking valets; which separate the plastic palaces of ‘fast food’ from the expensive dining establishments.

One ‘eats’ at McDonald’s, but ‘dines’ at The Four Seasons. Steak and potato or hamburger and French fries – the ingredients are practically the same. How they are prepared makes the difference!

In the early 1970s, I was trying to juggle marriage, motherhood, homemaking and a newspaper column syndicated through Columbia Features, when it seemed obvious to me that there wasn’t a single cookbook on the market that could help me take the monotony out of mealtime. There was not a single recipe in the newspaper’s food section that did not smack of down-home dullness!

‘Okay,’ they said at the newspaper I worked for, ‘YOU write the column on foods and recipes that YOU think would really excite the readers and make them happy!’ I did, but that didn’t make the Editors happy, because it made their [food industry] advertisers miserable.

When I was told that I’d have to go back to monotonous meatloaf and uninteresting side-dishes that made mealtime a ritual rather than a celebration or pick up my check, I told them to ‘MAIL it to me!’ I went home to start my own paper!

It was probably a dumb thing to do, amid an economic recession with the highest rate of unemployment I had ever experienced, but it was worth the risk. I was a dedicated writer that new someone had to give homemakers something more than what they were being given in the colored glossy magazines, where a bowl of library paste could even be photographed to look appetizing!

…THEY LAUGHED! THEY DOUBTED! They even tried to take me to court when some famous food companies insisted that I stop giving away their secrets. They couldn’t believe me when I said that I did NOT know, nor did I want to know, what they put in their so-called secret recipes.

I did know that there are very few recipes that can’t be duplicated or imitated at home. And we could do them for much less than purchasing the original product. I proved…it can be and should be done!

FAMOUS FOODS FROM FAMOUS PLACES have intrigued good cooks for a long time… There is speculation among the critics as to the virtues of re-creating, at home, the foods that you can buy ‘eating out’, such as the fast food fares of the popular franchise restaurants. To each, his own! Who would want to imitate ‘fast food’ at home?

I found that over a million people who saw me demonstrate replicating some famous fast food products [the FIRST time I was] on The Phil Donahue Show (July 7, 1981) DID – and their letters poured in at a rate of over 15,000 a day for months on end!

And while I have investigated the recipes, dishes, and cooking techniques of ‘fine’ dining rooms around the world, I received more requests from people who wanted to know how to make things like McDonald’s Special Sauce or General Foods Shake-N-Bake coating mix or White Castle’s hamburgers than I received for those things like Club 21’s Coq Au Vin.

I think I inherited Mom’s love for writing (among other things) and, while I was growing up, she continuously mentored me in creative writing. Now writing has become one of my favorite hobbies, as well as a legacy of love, as I carry on her torch, telling her story in these blog posts. It all starts somewhere.

Mom was such a huge influence on who I grew to be that I feel compelled to keep her torch lit and shining bright! Her love of writing and cooking and inspiring others in the same was, to me, one of the biggest parts of her legacy. It wasn’t something she did just for our family, but for all families.

Mom always hated when “the press” referred to her as a small town housewife who turned a hobby into an occupation. Writing was never Mom’s hobby. She used to say that being a writer isn’t what she did; but, rather, who she was! She also loved to mentor others in writing, as well.

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. 22)

I LIVE TO WRITE

JOURNALISM IS A PECULIAR profession to follow. I’ve been a serious journalist [since graduating high school in 1954]. I’ve worked among writers who wrote to live, while the rest of us lived to write. We had to communicate, to reach out to someone with ideas…thoughts…reasonings and remembering.

While I live to write, I must consider that others do not. Writers never retire, not if they’re truly writers. Editors may retire and reporters may retire…at some given point. But, old writers never die, they just run out of words.

I never thought I’d see the day that Mom would run out of words. I’m sure she didn’t either! But her words live on forever in print! I’ve heard from many people, since starting these blog posts in September 2018, who’ve told me that they still have their copies of Mom’s publishings and how special they are to them.

I pour through my copies of Mom’s books and newsletters all the time, as they inspire me in, both, cooking and writing! Mom was certainly my mentor in those areas. Please contact me at [email protected] or on Facebook @TheRecipeDetective with your memories of my mom! I’d love to hear from you, too!

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. 75)

ASPIRE TO INSPIRE

WE EMBRACE THE CHALLENGE to inspire…The care and concern that an author has for their readers is part of the pleasure of presenting interesting ideas in either an entertaining way or in an informative way. I try to balance my own presentations between the two.

When I am broadcasting over the numerous radio stations around the country, sometimes around the world, I try to lift the listener to a new height of interest and enthusiasm, and I leave the serious side of nutrition to the experts, who have the medical background to support their claims.

My hope is to present my recipes in such a way that cooking is a joy and never a job! I try to present these recipes with the same concern as I do giving a gift to a special friend. Each of our 5 children, who have grown up helping Paul and me with these recipes, have gone out into the world with this legacy of love and enthusiasm. We can only hope that they use what we have given them.

LAST THOUGHTS…

#CleanOffYourDeskDay

In addition to the national celebrations or observances I’ve already mentioned, as the second Monday in January (2023), today is also… National Clean Off Your Desk Day! I wanted to mention, this is NOT a day Mom would’ve celebrated or observed but I do!

By the way, getting organized was the #3 contender, according to that report I mentioned earlier, from KrisTV.com/news, called the Top 10 Most Common New Year’s Resolutions… (Dec. 30, 2021).

I’m one of those weird people who like to clean and, especially, to organize! I don’t know why – it’s some OCD thing I have – but organizing is one of my favorite hobbies. I tried to surprise Mom once, when I was a teenager, by cleaning and organizing her office space. However, when it came to her desk, she preferred her own “organized mess”.

IN CLOSING…

In honor of January, being National Oatmeal Month,  here is Mom’s copycat recipe for “Aunt Jenny’s Date Oat Bars”; as seen in her self-published cookbook, The Original 200 Plus Secret Recipes© Book (Secret RecipesTM, Marysville, MI; June 1997, p. 4).

#NationalOatmealMonth

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

January also observes… National Soup Month, National Blood Donor Month, National Hot Tea Month, National Slow Cooking Month, and National Sunday Supper Month!

The second week of January celebrates… National Mocktail Week, National Folic Acid Awareness Week,  Universal Letter Writing Week and National Pizza Week, which always start on the second Sunday of January.

Today is also… National Apricot Day!

Tomorrow is… National Bittersweet Chocolate Day, National Cut Your Energy Costs Day, National Oysters Rockefeller Day, and National Save The Eagles Day! Plus, as the second Tuesday in January (2023), it’s also… Shop for Travel Day!

Wednesday, January 11th is… National Arkansas Day and National Milk Day!

Thursday, January 12th is… National Curried Chicken Day and National Marzipan Day!

Friday, January 13th is… Korean American Day, National Peach Melba Day, and National Sticker Day!

Saturday, January 14th is… National Dress Up Your Pet Day, National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day, and National Ratification Day!

Sunday, January 15th is… National Bagel Day, National Hat Day, and National Strawberry Ice Cream Day! Plus, as the start of the third week of January, it’s also… World Kiwanis Week, Hunt for Happiness Week, National Healthy Weight Week, and National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week!

#TGIM

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

…2 down and 50 to go!

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Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Hobby & Devotion

Happy Monday and happy National Hobby Month! Personally, I look forward to every Monday because they are my 52 Chances each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with all of you!

#TheRecipeDetective

#NationalHobbyMonth

For now, my blog writing is more of a hobby than a vocation since I don’t make any money from it. However, like I wrote last week, regarding Mom’s love for writing, “It was her profession, career, and livelihood; but it was never her ‘work’ – not to Mom – and certainly never a hobby!” Mom felt like writing was, above all else, her purpose, her function, and her role in life.

Mom’s passion for writing began when she was about 10 years old, after watching a 1946 Warner Brothers movie about the Bronte sisters, called “Devotion”. That was when she started journaling daily. In fact, throughout the rest of her life, Mom continued journaling, which amounted to more than 71 years of chronicles – now that’s DEVOTION!

My passion for writing began around the same age as Mom, when I first fell in love with poetry, essays, and other creative writing. Actually, I’ve written hundreds of poems, myself, but I’ve never tried to publish them (other than a few, in some contests I entered as a teenager).

Like Mom, when I was young, I often thought about writing “the great American novel”. For me, it came about after reading the “Little House” series by Laura Ingles Wilder. However, that’s as far as it went. I started to write a book a few times but always failed to follow through with it. I was never confident enough to put myself out there – to believe in myself or my abilities.

FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…

As seen in…

This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 66)

CONFIDENCE COMES FROM WITHIN

THERE IS A CERTAIN amount of confidence that comes with every risk we take and are able to turn the risk into a success. When I began my newsletter some 12 years ago or more [1974], there were at least 20 newsletters like mine on the market, with which I did compete in a neighborly and mutually helpful way.

Today [in 1986], not one of these remains in print or in circulation. I feel it depends on how badly you really want to do something, how deeply you truly want to succeed whether or not you will make it. In the last pages of this collection, I take you ‘Behind-The-Scenes’ of our operation as a family enterprise and cover some of the ground we had to break, some of the rugged way that we had to follow in order to continue with our work.

There was always a new and more stunning publication being introduced into the mail-service marketplace, giving me one more reason to wonder if what I was offering could survive on the merits of my loving what I was doing more than I loved the money it would bring or the recognition it might merit.

Just this week, I received a letter announcing that one more of the [other] recipe newsletters would be going out of print after March of next year [1987] so that the editor could compile and publish a cookbook. It was like a message to me from a Divine Source to whom I had been recently appealing for help to give our readers what they could not find anywhere else and to do it with the spirit of friendship, rather than customer appeal.

I was putting the finishing touches on this collection, knowing it had to be at the printer within the week, had about 50% of a new cookbook ready to offer in time for Christmas and the next two issues of the newsletter on the drawing board, not to mention a collection of my mother’s recipes; which she was presenting in a folder, for sale by the holidays, and we were publishing for her.

So many irons in the fire and still it would never occur to me to put any of it away, or put it aside, even temporarily, as we were forced to do after the one MILLION letters we received from the Donahue TV show [five] years ago [1981]. The confidence that comes to those who have the desire to offer their very best to the public, comes from within, from the desire to do their best, and to do it happily.

Mom re-kindled my passion for writing almost seven years ago, when she asked me to help her re-write one of her self-published cookbooks. In fact, the whole re-write collaboration put our mother-daughter relationship on a whole new level, in more ways than one.

Mom once compared writing and publishing her own books to going through all the highs and lows of pregnancy and then giving birth. Even after having my own children, I didn’t completely understand what she meant. Not until I actually went through the whole process with her, in re-writing one of her books..

I helped Mom re-format and re-write her favorite, self-published cookbook, The Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; 3rd Edition, Nov. 1983) for a new digital generation to enjoy; because she couldn’t re-write it, herself, in the Microsoft Word format that’s required for publishing these days, nor could she go the self-publishing route again.

With some help from my brother, Mike, and after doing a lot of research on the internet, we chose Balboa Press to publish it. To Mom’s surprise, the company only wanted to change a couple of things – one of her illustrations and the title, itself. They made some suggestions, but Mom and I came up with our own version. The book went to press shortly before Mom passed away, under the new title, Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press, Jan. 2018).

TheRecipeDetective.com website was developed years ago by my brother, Mike, to help bring our parents’ Secret RecipesTM business into the digital age. I remember when Mom got her first (and only) computer. She tried to learn how to operate it (with lessons from one of her grand children), but she couldn’t even get open her email. Frustrated by the “new technology”, she just gave the computer to her grandchild. My brother, Mike, managed TheRecipeDetective.com website for Mom and Dad, from where he lived, on the west coast; including their online orders and emails.

Even though she didn’t understand the internet, herself, Mom was so happy about reaching a whole new generation of people with her recipes and stories again! It’s ironic that it took Mom a couple years to write the original book (which she first self-published in May of 1982) and it took me a couple years to re-write it and re-format it for her!

After Mom passed away, in 2018, Mike passed the website on to me that summer. I had begun learning how to blog so that I could write about Mom, in an online forum, reaching as many people as I could. I wanted to get her the recognition I thought she deserves for having been the pioneer (and the GOAT) of copycat cookery.

LAST THOUGHTS…

Since this is the second Monday in January, it’s also… National Clean Off Your Desk Day! This is something I would celebrate but not Mom. In fact, any given Monday, I’m usually cleaning the weekend’s accumulated pile of stuff off my desk!

#CleanOffYourDeskDay

IN CLOSING…

In honor of January’s observance for National Slow Cooking Month, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for Apple Butter, using a slow cooker; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 279). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)].

#SlowCookingMonth

#GloriaPitzersCookbook

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

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

#LearnSomethingNewEveryDay

Some of January’s other observances include… National Blood Donor Month, National Hot Tea Month, National Mentoring Month, National Oatmeal Month, National Soup Month, and National Sunday Supper Month!

Starting yesterday, this second week of January is celebrating, among other things… National Mocktail Week, Universal Letter Writing Week and National Pizza Week!

Today is also… National Bittersweet Chocolate Day and National Oysters Rockefeller Day!

Tomorrow is… National Arkansas Day and National Milk Day! Plus, as the second Tuesday in January, it’s also… Shop for Travel Day!

Wednesday, January 12th is… National Curried Chicken Day and National Marzipan Day!

Thursday, January 13th is… Korean American Day and National Peach Melba Day!

Friday, January 14th is… National Dress Up Your Pet Day and National Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day!

January 15th is… National Bagel Day, National Booch Day, and National Strawberry Ice Cream Day! Plus, as the third Saturday in January, it’s also… National Use Your Gift Card Day!

Sunday, January 16th is… National Fig Newton Day, National Nothing Day, and National Religious Freedom Day! It’s also the start of the third week of January, which celebrates, among other things… World Kiwanis Week, Hunt for Happiness Week, National Healthy Weight Week, and National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week!

#TGIM

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

…2 down and 50 to go!

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Mondays & Memories of My Mom – Que Sera, Sera!

TGIM! Thank God, it’s Monday, again! Happy Monday to everyone!

I mentioned last week that I plan to make every Monday of this year a memorable beginning to my week – and, hopefully, to yours as well! This week, my focus is on my New Year’s plan, which I mentioned at the end of my blog last week, in the “P.S.” section. For 2020, I want to start a mini e-newsletter, including more of Mom’s “Food-for-Thought”, food-for-the-soul and food for the table inspirations; as well as some of my own too.

I don’t have a “launch” date set for the e-newsletter, yet; as I am still in the process of learning how to create an email list, first. The whole digital process is in no way the same as or even similar to what Mom did by hand for 27 years; the last time being more than 20 years ago. The layouts Mom created and published, herself, were all of her own design. The family helped to label all of the thousands of newsletter issues by hand, then Mom and Dad took them all to the local Post Office and mailed them out to their subscribers by what is now referred to as “snail mail”. That was January 1974 through December 2000!

If you’re not already – you can follow me on Facebook @TheRecipeDetective, on Twitter @recipedetective, on Instagram @recipedetective and on Pinterest @therecipedetective – for that’s where I will be announcing all of my future updates and posts to therecipedetective.com website, as well as when I’ll be launching my new email sign-up list and the e-newsletter!

When the time came to retire Mom’s Secret Recipes© NewsletterTM, Dad was ready to fully retire, himself, from all of his work in Secret RecipesTM; of course, he was 70 by then and beginning to struggle with his own physical limitations. Mom, being a bit younger, though, never really wanted to “fully retire” from the recipe business, herself. She was a writer – and, as she would often say, “writers never die, they just run out of words.” Well, even Dad would’ve attested that Mom NEVER ran out of words! However, after she had her stroke in 2015, which resulted in her having dementia, Mom struggled with words and writing for a while.

Nevertheless, both, writing and faith were in her blood. Mom had journaled every day, since she was about 10 years old. Her deep-seeded love for writing helped her immensely in the therapy for her dementia, following the stroke, as she couldn’t remember recent events very well. But, by re-reading her journal entries from previous days, it helped her to, somewhat, deal with the forgetfulness.

However, she could never understand why she could remember her youth like it was yesterday but couldn’t remember yesterday; and why she didn’t recognize herself in the mirror or in recent pictures.

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. 6 & 7)

REDISCOVERING [MEMORIES]

Writer, David Mazel, in a Boston newspaper, talked about looking at old photographs, as if gazing into a lost world, and I know exactly how he feels. I was shuffling through a shoebox full of photos from years ago, feeling it was some other world entirely than the one in which we now lived… where warm memories could stir and awaken me to consider just how well we did with so little, as Paul and I and our five (now, adult) children developed our family enterprise.

Over the years, some images, of how [our] recipe business began, have remained indelible. Others, however, have changed; like the shifting patterns in a rotating kaleidoscope… From that very first article that I wrote for the Royal Oak Tribune [in 1950], when I was 14 years old, to the [last] issue of our Secret RecipesTM Newsletter©…the work has been, truly, a labor of love…

I must have spent hours studying the pieces I wrote in my early days – remembering where I was [and in] what I believed and expected from life when I wrote them. There was always a certainty in each article [and] every book begun but not always finished, then, that life was good and surely God was a loving presence. This always carried me through. It still does.

Just as history tends to repeat itself, once again, the fates had other plans for Mom than she had for herself…as she, instead, began writing just to help herself remember things later. Unfortunately, Mom’s plan to continue writing and advising as the Recipe DetectiveTM had to come to an end…or maybe not – as I became her surrogate writer.

Mom loved Doris Day’s song from the Hitchcock film, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956): ‘Que sera, sera! Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera! What will be, will be!’ Mom called those certain, unexpected events in our lives “meant-to-be” moments or happenings – “what will be, will be!” She had complete faith that it was all part of the Lord’s plan (not hers, nor anyone else’s) – and, as she would quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘ours is not to reason why…‘

During the last few years of Mom’s life, after her stroke, I got to know her in a whole new way – one that I missed out on during my self-centered teen years in the early-1980s. It was late-2015, when I started the 2-year long process of helping Mom to rewrite her favorite cookbook, Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition). First, it all had to be edited and re-typed into Microsoft Word in order to be re-published for a whole new digital age of people.

For decades, Mom never wanted to let any of her books be published by a company that wanted to alter her creations. But times changed, as did situations and attitudes. This time, Mom was willing to let someone else do the rewrites and someone else be the publisher.

1974, Gloria Pitzer mimeographing her newsletter and recipe cards.

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. 16)

[A REAL PUBLISHER,] of course, one would surmise…is one who can put your book into print and get it sold for you. Having no actual count of the number of copies we’ve printed and sold, over the years, right at my fingertips; I can only say that we probably give away a good number of what we print [too].

I’ve thought all along that if I could possibly find another way by which to earn the money to pay our bills, I would gladly give my work away free, just for the joy of doing what we do! I have no intentions of ‘retiring’ from this endeavor and my husband, Paul, is slowly accepting this as something that, while it may make us a worthwhile living, also makes that living worthwhile!

WHEN THE MIMEOGRAPH was turning out the pages of my books… I did not look too far ahead to a more sophisticated technique. I took each day as it came and each idea for a cookbook as they also came (and a few of them were NOT cookbooks), trying to present the books with honesty and sincerity and a special enthusiasm that nobody else could give it for us.

My cup had been filling up and running over for a long, long time and I hadn’t even realized it. And that kind of abundance had nothing whatsoever to do with money or fame, but with a sense of direction and yielding – all the rugged way!

Mom and me at her 80th Birthday Party – Photo by Paul Jaekel, Jan. 2016

After researching quite a few publishers, we chose Balboa Press; who, actually, did not want to change much of anything except the title (because it too closely resembled the title of The Betty Crocker Cookbook – as it was intended to, in the first place) and a few illustrations (because they had the “likeness” of “The Colonel” on them.) Additionally, I had to change the layout slightly but not because of the publisher, it was simply because of the digital revolution and the printed format we chose for the final product.

Together, Mom and I chose some parts of the original book to be totally omitted from the new re-write due to their lack of current information, relatability or something else similar. Re-reading Mom’s creative “Food for Thought” articles throughout the book and discussing them with her, brought us closer in a whole new way, with our shared love for writing. Mom loved to mentor those who shared her same love for writing!

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. 75)

The care and concern that an author has for their readers is part of the pleasure of presenting interesting ideas in either an entertaining way or in an informative way. I try to balance my own presentations between the two.

When I am broadcasting over the numerous radio stations around the country, sometimes around the world, I try to lift the listener to a new height of interest and enthusiasm, and I leave the serious side of nutrition to the experts, who have the medical background to support their claims.

My hope is to present my recipes in such a way that cooking is a joy and never a job! I try to present these recipes with the same concern as I do [when] giving a gift to a special friend. Each of our 5 children, who have grown up helping Paul and me with these recipes, have gone out into the world with this legacy of love and enthusiasm. We can only hope that they use what we have given them…

Of course, I can only hope that I’ve made Mom proud of what I’m doing with her legacy of love – her family treasure of Secret RecipesTM and all it entails. While Dad was happy to retire the business, Mom never did want to stop what she was doing. However, at some point in time, our bodies and brains reach a moment when they just can’t do what they used to do. Now, even after the finish of her book, I still continue to write for Mom. I am honored to carry her torch in her memory and continue to inspire people in the kitchen, in the home, in the family and throughout the world.

I want this blog, the website and Mom’s last cookbook to reach new pinnacles in the digital market – in her honor and memory, with all the love and passion that I inherited from her. I’ll be honest, though, it has been (and still is) a work in progress and, while I love to write, promoting and selling are not my forte; as, equally, are not my computer skills. I guess you could say that I am a work in progress also! Something else I inherited from Mom – I love to learn! Unfortunately, the older I get the longer it takes me to learn something new. But that doesn’t stop me! You can teach an old dog a new trick, it just takes a little longer!

Nowadays, knowledge is literally and instantaneously at our finger tips! There’s so much information out there from which to learn – it makes our old sets of encyclopedias look like microscopic drops of water in an ocean! You need to be self-motivated and self-inspired to grab the book or the computer and open the “pages”, reading and soaking it up like a sponge! Of course, you also have to be able to differentiate between what’s fact and what’s fiction because not everything on the web is factual but that’s something you learn with experience.

IN CLOSING…

This year in honor of #52Chances and #MemorableBeginnings, I want to offer you a recipe each week from Mom’s “Original 200” Secret RecipesTM collection – as these are the memorable beginnings of the Recipe DetectiveTM. The following recipe is Mom’s imitation of dark fudge like Mackinac Island serves!

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

According to NationalDayCalendar.com, today is National Clean Off Your Desk Day! To that, Mom would say, “don’t touch the mess on my desk or you’ll goof up my system!” I, on the other hand, love organization! It’s actually one of my OCD passions.

EVEN MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES
Excerpts from…
My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989)

WHILE SOME FOLKS claim to have been born under a sign related in some way to the stars and other heavenly bodies, I wish to establish, right here and now, the sign under which I must have been born. It reads: ‘DO NOT TOUCH THE MESS ON THIS DESK OR YOU’LL GOOF UP MY SYSTEM.’ From this, you can imagine how astonished I was when, one day, it occurred to me that Heaven had certainly poured me out a blessing and my cup was running over. But I couldn’t find my mop! That has more or less (actually MORE) been the story of my life…my cup runneth over and over and over. (pp. 14-15)

It is with appreciation that, in spite of my lack of organization, Mary Ellen Pinkham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellen_Pinkham, the famous household hints author, took an interest in our recipes…I really should get together with Mary Ellen and learn exactly how to become better organized but, somehow, time keeps getting away from me. (p. 119)

#TGIM
#ThankGodItsMondayDay

To repeat last week…NationalDayCalendar.com suggests that we… “Stop shaming Monday and look at what Monday has to offer… 52 CHANCES to see a beautiful sunrise… share your talents with the world… teach someone a new skill that will better their lives…” This year, for me, Mondays are 52 CHANCES to re-tell Mom’s story; hopefully, re-inspiring love in the kitchen, in the home, in the family, throughout the neighborhood and around the world. Two down, 50 to go! I hope you’ll share this with your family and friends and return next Monday for more!