By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Mostly 4-Ingredient Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; April 1986, p. 66).
DUE TO THE DIRECTION of dialogue from the unfriendly quarters of those who lean toward the gourmet cuisine, I’ve found some changes of thinking, reflected in their critiques. We are suddenly faced with the willful annihilation of long-held beliefs, which, to me, border on the sacred. Word is that the color of the wine no longer has to be compatible to that of the food it accompanies. Now, tell me – what kind of wine does one serve with Fudge Cake and a Big Mac?
Beat all ingredients well, as listed, on high speed of electric mixer about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl often. Spread [batter] evenly over bottom of a greased and floured 9-in-sq baking pan. Bake at 350°F for about 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted through center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 30 minutes. Apply Fudge Icing to slightly warm cake. Refrigerate cake for about 1 hour, before cutting it into nine 3-inch squares. Freezes well.
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Mostly 4-Ingredient Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; April 1986, p. 66).
INGREDIENTS:
4 TB (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1-oz square unsweetened, solid, baking chocolate
¼ cup dark corn syrup
1 cup confectioners (powdered) sugar
INSTRUCTIONS:
Melt butter (or margarine) in 1½-qt saucepan, over medium heat, adding chocolate and stirring until completely melted and smooth. Add corn syrup. Stir constantly until it comes to a boil [and continue] only for 1 minute, stirring persistently.
Remove from heat. Beat in powdered sugar until smooth. Apply warm icing to slightly warm cake. Refrigerate iced cake, before cutting.
Beat eggs and pie filling in large mixing bowl, with mixer on medium speed, breaking up the apples, in the pie filling, into bits. Beat in spice and drop in dry cake mix (right from the box), b eating only until completely dissolved and moistened. Do not overbeat or bread will be heavy.
Divide batter between two 8½” Pyrex loaf dishes, each sprayed with Pam and dusted with flour. Bake them at 350°F for 45-50 minutes, or until [toothpick] inserted in center comes out clean. Cool bread in dishes, on [wire] rack for 10 minutes and then drizzle top of loaves with [my] Thin Vanilla Icing.
Cool 1 hour. Remove from baking dishes. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 4 hours, before slicing. Makes 2 loaves.
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… Sugar-Free Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Nov. 1987, P. 93).
INGREDIENTS:
2-lbs ground round
2 TB oil
2 envelopes onion soup mix
4 cups prepared spaghetti sauce
2 cans (14-oz each) sliced, stewed tomatoes
1 TB chili powder
2 tsp cumin powder
½ cup sugar-free strawberry or grape jelly (or jam)
4 cans (1-lb each) undrained chili beans in chili gravy or undrained red kidney beans (OPTIONAL, for “Con Carne”)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Brown beef in oil, on medium-high heat, until all pink disappears; crumbling it with the tines of a fork. Remove from heat to a 4-qt kettle. Add remaining ingredients and cook on low heat for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Adjust the seasoning to taste with additional chili powder or cumin powder if you wish. (Recipe may be cut in half.)
This recipe serves 10-12 nicely. Freeze [leftovers] in small portions to thaw and reheat gently, within 4 months – or refrigerate, covered, to [consume] within a week.
Melt caramels in top of double boiler with canned milk, stirring until smooth over gently boiling water. Stir in butter and melted chocolates and blend well. Continue to let it cook over boiling water 15 minutes. Remove from heat. With mixer on medium speed, add powdered sugar a little at a time until you have a spreading consistency. To thin it, if necessary, beat in a little hot, black coffee. Makes 3 cups.
6 large Granny Smith green apples – peeled, cored, and sliced quite thin
½ cup granulated sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¾ cup flour
½ cup sugar
Dash salt
¼ cup butter
¼ cup chopped walnuts
INSTRUCTIONS:
Place sliced apples in medium bowl and add first half-cup sugar, the lemon juice, cinnamon, and cloves. Transfer, when mixed well, to greased 2-qt baking dish. In another bowl, combine all the rest of the ingredients, except nuts, until mixture is like coarse meal.
Add nuts and sprinkle over apple mixture. Bake uncovered at 350°F for 45 minutes or until apples are tender and topping is nicely browned. Serve warm or cold, with ice cream or whipped cream. Serves 6-8.
The kitchen can often be the ultimate deal maker or deal breaker for most home buyers. It was a very important factor for my parents (particularly Mom, of course). More and more, people with families are looking for homes with large kitchens that have room within for the family dining table – rather than there being a formal, separate dining room.
My family’s favorite gathering place has always been the kitchen. It was the place where we all gathered to eat, laugh, and talk about the day’s events. I have a sign on a wall by my own kitchen table that reads: “There’s a room in every home where the smallest events and biggest occasions become the stories of our lives.” It’s so true!
Since 2020, the importance of the family kitchen increased ten-fold. The dining table became more than just a place where we ate our meals. It became the family’s epicenter, even more so than the old normal. It functions as an office and classroom desk/work area, as well as a wide array of other things.
But that’s not new to my family, as we grew up with Mom’s Secret Recipes business growing and taking over the whole dining room of our house in Algonac. Of course, the kitchen was another hub for all of her recipe developments, also. Mom wrote a lot of articles about the kitchen and its importance to the cook as well as to the family unit.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, p. 66)
COME INTO THE KITCHEN
THE KITCHEN – IT’S THE BEST place to be when we’re home! You’ll notice that even current home designers are getting away from the formal dining room area, the same way auto designers are abandoning the limousine, the regal and roomy sedans, with their plush interiors, for more functional models.
Homes are becoming more functional in design, as well. In our continuing efforts to economize, to restrict energy sources and to b ring the family back to the warm, bright openness of a country kitchen, we have rediscovered the personal advantages of the best room in the house.
Oh, there will always be the sleek and satiny modern designs of circles, rectangles, and dimensional art forms in the immaculate whites and the startling blacks and the platinum trim and aluminum coldness of contemporary décor.
But the classic country kitchen is coming back where there is one large working space close to the appliance area and also open to the informal, large eating area.
One kitchen design that I truly enjoyed and wished I had thought of it years ago, was a portion of one wall in the eating area that had a shoe molding frame glued to enclose one area that contained a haphazard arrangement of family snapshots, superimposed, over early school drawings by their children; a few post cards depicting a favorite vacation spot when the kids were little and bold handprints of each child, with their names lettered beneath.
The other walls were tastefully decorated with framed favorite recipes and measuring utensils and baskets that were really used, every day, rather than portray the useless object of décor. It was a warm and workable kitchen that reflected a family as a unit rather than the individuals.
There was no reflection of a magazine layout for a swanky and impersonal organization in that room. Every inch of it said, ‘Welcome!’ If you were a stranger when you entered, you were a friend before you left.
It’s been another year, in which many of us have been dealing with an overload of stress and anxiety. Food tends to be one of the few things that usually comfort us in trying times. That’s probably another top reason why the kitchen is, more often than not, considered to be one the favorite rooms in a house. In fact, it’s often regarded as the HEART of the home.
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, p. 66)
FAMILY & HOME
FAMILY RESTAURANTS and homestyle meals are returning to popularity. During the war-protesting days of Vietnam, the right to be ‘different’, the right to protest, to be individual made anything even slightly related to ‘family’ and ‘home’ forbidden – or corny. People became impersonal to each other…
Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. The family and home have been reinstated…even in our restaurant industry. Today it is changing back to the personal, the warm, the family. The restaurant industry, in its urgent bid for the public’s loyal attention, is trying to make their dining experiences like your home away from home. Hospitality is becoming their badge of honor!
The kitchen… is the best place to be when we’re home! You’ll notice that current home designers are getting away from the formal dining room area… Homes are becoming more functional in design, as well. In our continuing efforts to economize, to restrict energy sources and to bring the family back to the warm, bright, openness of a country kitchen, we have rediscovered the personal advantages of the best room in the house…
The classic country kitchen is coming back, where there is one large working space close to the appliance area and also open to the informal, large, eating area… It was a warm and workable kitchen that reflected a family as a unit… Every inch of it said: ‘Welcome!’ If you were a stranger when you entered, you were a friend before you left.
‘Things changed, as well they should. Women went out to work. If they weren’t working to supplement the family income, they went to work for their own satisfaction. Whatever the reasons, families changed. Eating at home became less… appealing – and less… convenient. Homes were built with smaller kitchens… Microwave ovens were more affordable and defrost-and-heat became more popular.’ – Gloria Pitzer, Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 295)
It’s been another year, in which many of us have been dealing with an overload of stress and anxiety. Food tends to be one of the few things that usually comfort us in trying times. That’s probably another top reason why the kitchen is, more often than not, considered to be one the favorite rooms in a house. In fact, it’s often regarded as the HEART of the home.
AGAIN, MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, p. 67)
KITCHENS
KITCHENS ARE NO LONGER FOR COOKING! They’re for snacking. Kitchens are not designed today [1982] for families, but for the individual. There are no shelves for keeping favorite cookbooks nearby, to work with the recipes in them.
Kitchens have become hallways from the outside to the rest of the house that is designed to make lasting impressions on the people who have to be impressed! We have neat little places for artificial plants and artifacts of just the right color, to tie it all together.
The way the magazines and showroom floor models of furnishing groupings do! Homes should be, however, a reflection of us! Not an echo of somebody else.
A kitchen designed for a cook, for a family to enjoy belongs to the designers of 50 years ago. I wish homemakers would design kitchens instead of those high educated, sophisticated, degree-holding architects and interior decorators who never have to cook in them.
Never have to untangle a preschooler from the Mixmaster cord, or retrieve G.I. Joe dolls and E.T. puppets from the cake batter bowl. You cannot expect a 5-foot-3-inch tall homemaker to be able to use the top cupboard shelf of a kitchen that was designed by a 6-foot-2-inch man at a drawing board in a high-rise office building, probably thousands of miles from where the home he’s drawing will be built.
People who now design kitchens in homes are not the same ones who will live in them, who will cook at their inadequate stoves; baking in their very small ovens, washing dishes at their misplaced sinks.
In the homes I have seen, in searching for one for our family, I longed so much for the one I had left in St. Clair; that I had to come back to truly appreciate it. And you know what? It was designed by a woman. The builder’s wife designed this house for a big family!
I never met her. She died of cancer about the time we bought the house. But I think of her fondly, often, as I enjoy what she planned for us, without ever having met us. And, while I realize that I will probably offend the liberationists who worked so hard to get the woman out of the kitchen, I must applaud those of us who still, by our own choice, and out of love, wish to enjoy their homes, their families, and especially – their kitchens!
For ages, the kitchen was always the heart and soul of the family unit, until people became busier with activities outside the home – work/school, sports, and other extracurricular activities. That’s partly what contributed to the success of fast food fares – families became more & more on-the-go individuals.
LAST THOUGHTS…
This may sound sexist, however, as for me, my mom, both of my grandmas and probably most of my aunts and great-aunts – cooking was always something we enjoyed doing for others. I find cooking to be one of the best and easiest ways to say, “I love you” or, simply, “welcome” to those with whom I share my table!
IN CLOSING…
In honor of Friday, being National Chocolate Day, and October being National Dessert Month and National Bake and Decorate Month, here’s Mom’s secret recipes for Gourmet Fudge Cake & Fudge Icing; as seen in her self-published cookbook, Gloria Pitzer’s Mostly 4-Ingredient Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; April 1986, p. 66).
NOTE: Apparently, I sometimes get my Mondays mixed up – as I just realized this morning that my post from last week was supposed to be the one I had wrote ahead of time for this week, because I was going on a little vacation. So this is the post I meant to put up last week…
Mom’s passion for writing began when she was about 10½ years old. She was greatly influenced by the 1946 Warner Brothers movie about the Bronte sisters, called ‘Devotion’. That’s when she started journaling on a daily basis.
In fact, Mom continued journaling throughout the rest of her life; which amounted to over 71 years of hand-written chronicles full of thoughts, ideas, faith and positive attitude – now that’s DEVOTION! Mom often thought about writing “the great American novel”. However, fate always took her writing in another direction.
It seemed that every writing contest Mom entered and won was usually for something she wrote, in relation to food. She always trusted that God was guiding her to where she needed to be.
After writing a variety of homaker-focused columns for newspapers, directly and syndicated, for about 15 years, Mom discovered a completely new niche in the food industry. She called it copycat cookery – imitating “famous foods from famous places” at home.
Her readers loved it and wanted more, requesting her to imitate their favorites; but the food industry advertisers didn’t like it, requesting her editor stop it. Mom decided to quit, and went home to start her own business, developing and writing recipes to imitate a variety of favorite fast foods, junk foods, restaurant dishes, and grocery store products.
She involved all of us kids and eventually Dad, as the small family business, run from our dining room table, grew and grew. Mom started her small family business, selling her recipes individually; printed on 4” x 6” index cards, suitable for easy filing. Her collection quickly grew to hundreds of recipes.
To better offer her growing catalog of “secret recipes”, Mom started writing, illustrating and (with Dad) self-publishing about 40 cookbooks (+/-), between 1973 and 2002. In that time, she also wrote and self-published a few “Food for Thought”/positive attitude books. Additionally, from January 1974 through December 2000, she penned & illustrated hundreds of newsletter issues.
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. 53)
RISKS – THE HARD ROAD TO SELF-SUFFICIENCY
THERE ARE MANY RISKS involved with going into business for yourself, no matter what product or service you intend to offer. If I had thought more about the risks, than I did about the possibilities, I never would have moved an inch toward doing any of the things about which I now write.
My husband is not a risk-taker. I am. We complement each other well. He still becomes uneasy and anxious about every new idea I have for another book or another project, on the basis that ‘we can’t afford it.’
I have learned, over the years, to keep many of my projects to myself until they are completed, which in the long run, saves Paul from worrying unnecessarily about something that will very likely turn out well, and keeps me from worrying that Paul is worrying.
Some people experience a certain let-down, after reaching what they consider ‘the top’. When they finally reach the Everest of their ambitions [and] make it to the top, they start to wonder why they were in such a hurry to get there anyhow.
Like Lee Iacocca, who was only in his mid-40s when he was president of the Ford Motor Company, writes in his autobiography, [that he had] no idea what he was going to do ‘for an encore’! I have never had to worry about this, fortunately.
When I have been asked about goals or destination, it is been my feeling that every corner I turn has a new goal, a new destination awaiting us. I have never thought of any one point as being the top. Life has so many wonderful opportunities for each of us to take advantage of, that it does not seem reasonable that I should give myself the limitations that would determine just how far I should be able to go.
Because this was never a hobby, never WORK, never a job, I have had no problem with the worry or concern that accompanies a position from which one expects to retire. I would not want to give up what I have been doing since I was a child [writing].
It would be unfair to have to give up doing something that has also brought so much pleasure and good information to so many people. It was, however, only when I realized what I should be writing about and what I should be sharing with the readers – what I knew best – that things really began to happen.
Of course, my husband wisely reminds me, when someone asked about writing their own cookbook, that WRITING it is the easiest part. Knowing how to SELL it is the hard part!
‘Find a job you enjoy doing and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ – Mark Twain
I believe that if you can find something you love to do and turn it into a career, you’re very lucky. I’ve found many interesting reads online, over the past few years, regarding how to find hobbies that make you happy and how to generate income from them. Here are just some of the ones I’ve enjoyed reading.
‘30 Best Profitable Hobbies That Make Money’ (updated 9/7/22) by Sara, the dreamer at GatheringDreams.com
Perhaps, you’ve already travelled that road and are looking to retire but don’t want to totally give up what you love doing. Consider the opposite route, as in ‘How To Run A Business As A Hobby’ (no date) by Christian Fisher at SmallBusiness.Chron.com.
IN CLOSING…
In honor of October, being National Apple Month, here’s Mom’s secret recipe for Apple Bread; as seen in her self-published cookbook, Gloria Pitzer’s Mostly 4-Ingredient Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; April 1986, p. 100).
October is special in so many ways besides being one of the most colorful months in Michigan. In relation to my mom, the Secret Recipe DetectiveTM, it’s also, among other things, National Eat Better & Eat Together Month, a subject of which I discussed in last week’s blog entry, as it relates to family bonding.
In a time, similar to these days – with political upheaval, low wages, and rising costs of living – Mom quit her job as a columnist at a local newspaper, after finding a niche in the recipes industry that people wanted and needed and being told by her editor to stop fulfilling it, as it was upsetting their food industry advertisers.
Mom went home to start her own “paper”, combining her humoristic cartoons with tips, tricks, and hints; as well as her “Food for Thought” and “No Laughing Matter” columns, in addition to her copycat cookery concept for “Eating Out At Home” – designed like a classic quilt, with pieces of this and that put together with love to create a functional work of art..
She “went to work” at home, every day, discovering how to recreate our favorite fast food & restaurant dishes from regular pantry items and without any special gadgets or appliances. She often incorporated the help of me and my siblings (and, later, Dad’s help); thereby, creating a small, dining-room-table, cottage-style, family business.
Mom’s copycat cookery didn’t stop at fast food and restaurant dishes. She also created imitations for shelf-stable groceries and freezer products purchased at the supermarket, as she discovered more things to make at home and thereby save money.
If something saved our household budget money, she loved to share it with others to help them save money too. She often referred to it as literally and figuratively having your cake and eating it too!
Mom’s trailblazing copycat cookery concept began in the 1970s, developing and writing her own recipes, as well as self-publishing them. Plus, she self-promoted her talents through newspapers and magazines, as well as through local, national, and international TV and radio talk shows.
My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 36)
HOW SECRET RECIPESTM BEGAN
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. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least try to have my own publication, however.
My confrontation with the editor at the Times Herald over the cheesecake recipe [like Sarah Lee’s], was probably the best thing that ever happened to me – us, as a family, in fact. I was forced to finally do something that, until then, I had only talked about doing because the advice I had listened to was bent on having somebody else handle my work.
Of course, I could not tell Paul what I was going to do – that I was going to publish a newsletter and I was going to try and sell subscriptions to it all without the help of the [publishing and syndicating] agencies to which I had previously been turning.
I was determined to make this idea work because I knew it was a good idea! It was a service that was needed and one that I could provide without ever having to leave the children again. With the help of the Almighty, I had every confidence that turning out a recipe newsletter was going to be something that would bless everyone concerned: me, the readers, the products mentioned, the reviews of restaurants – every idea was a blessing!
Mom’s favorite way to market her ground-breaking recipes was through radio talk shows. For nearly 40 years, she was a regular weekly or monthly guest on numerous radio talk shows, geared toward working homemakers all over the country and internationally. She promoted herself, her copycat cookery concepts, along with her recipes, books, and newsletter.
Mom liked to describe her newsletters as being like a visit from a friend – as you sit at the kitchen table, having coffee, discussing various topics of the day and sharing household tips and recipes. I would describe it, simply, as Mom’s “happy place” and her “legacy of love”.
In the early years of her home-based business, Mom sold her recipes for a quarter each, printed on 4”x6” index cards, from a mimeograph she kept in our laundry room. It didn’t seem to take long before her recipe library grew to hundreds, through requests from fans of her writing.
Within a few years, she went from recipe cards to monthly newsletters and multiple cookbooks; seemingly in the blink of an eye, as her recipes collection grew from hundreds to thousands. Over the years, it evolved into what finally became known as Secret RecipesTM – her legacy of love!
I find it so ironic that over the decades, since Mom officially launched her Secret RecipesTM enterprise, in 1973, so many people have imitated her, the ORIGINAL copycat cook. However, not all have given Mom the appropriate credit due her for being the first to uncover the supposed secrets of the food industry, imitating “famous foods from famous places” at home! Kudos to those who have, though!
Friday is (for 2022), among other things, National Body Language Day and World Smile Day; which go hand-in-hand, as a smile is part of body language. It’s welcoming, soothing, friendly – even contagious, as Mom described in her self-published book, This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 43).
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!
IN CLOSING…
In honor of this being National Chili Week and October being National Chili Month, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for California Chili; as seen in her self-published cookbook, Sugar-Free Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Nov. 1987, p. 93).
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 63)… [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
This is a favorite of my family! It’s so close to Chasen’s Chili, which Liz Taylor & Richard Burton would always have flown to them, wherever they were in the world! From my “Better Cooker’s Cook Book” (out of print now), this was one of my most-often requested recipes!
INGREDIENTS:
3 pounds ground beef
1 small onion (the size of an egg), chopped
5 ribs celery, sliced paper thin
4 tablespoons corn oil
½ teaspoon season salt
10-ounce can beef broth
4 cups strong, black, hot tea
6-ounce can tomato paste
4 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin powder
½ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon each: garlic salt and oregano powder
3 tablespoons vinegar
16-ounce can stewed-tomatoes
4 cans (1-lb each) red kidney beans, un-drained
2 cans (10-oz each) Campbell’s Chili Beef Soup
INSTRUCTIONS:
Brown the beef with the onions and celery in the oil, crumbling the beef to the consistency of rice. When the onions are transparent and the beef is no longer pink, put it in a Dutch-oven or slow-cooker and add everything else to it. Simmer it, covered, on low heat for about 2 hours – or until all flavors have blended to your taste and it’s piping hot, but never let it boil!
OTHER OPTIONS:
TEXAS STYLE CHILI: Dilute the finished chili [above] with two 12-ounce cans Busch Light beer! Ed McMahon never had it so good! Left-overs freeze well in family- or individual-sized containers. Serves 10 to 12.
