Because great recipes need to be shared!
PUNCH-A-TRAIN RAREBIT SAUCE
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… Eating Out at Home (National Home News, St. Clair, MI; September 1978, p. 22).
INGREDIENTS:
½ cup Pabst Blue Ribbon beer
1-lb sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 TB butter
½ tsp dry mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
A few grains of cayenne [pepper]
INSTRUCTIONS:
Cook [ingredients, as listed, in top of double boiler] over hot water, stirring until cheese is melted. Serve on hamburgers.
See also…
Thank God Its Monday and, as such, #HappyMonday to everyone! Welcome to #MemoriesOfMyMom!
As I wrote last week, since 1987, March observes and celebrates National Women’s History Month – to honor women and their endeavors in making the world a better place for ALL women – regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, or religion.
Additionally, yesterday began the start of International Women’s Week. Plus, Wednesday is International Women’s Day. Thus there’s no better time, for me to re-tell Mom’s story about being the trailblazer who started the “copycat cookery” concept in the food industry.
There are so many famous women, who have had great influence and blazed the trail for other women, to recognize world-wide – Amelia Earhart, Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, Mother Teresa, Madam Curie, Rosa Parks, Margaret Sanger, Princess Diana, Sandra Day O’Connor, Eleanor Roosevelt, “Rosie the Riveter”, Maya Angelou – and so on!
For some great stories about women’s history, check out History.com’s editors’ story, Famous Firsts In Women’s History (Updated: February 4, 2021), and 100 Women In History, by Jone Johnson Lewis (Updated: July 3, 2019).
I also want to celebrate “moms”! Most of what my mom knew in the kitchen, when she first started what became her “Secret RecipesTM” business, she had initially learned from her mom and mother-in-law (as well as an older sister and many aunts). I think, in most families, the moms are probably the greatest sources of inspiration and influence.
Aside from her family, Mom was also greatly inspired, throughout her life, by many other notably talented women – comedians, actresses, and writers like Carol Burnette, Mary Tyler Moore, and Lucille Ball probably top the list. Others include Erma Bombeck, Carol Duvall, Elsie Masterton, Peg Bracken, and Irma Rombauer; just to name a handful.
I’ve also mentioned more than a few times, in my blog posts, that one of the greatest influences, in Mom’s life as a writer, was the 1946 Warner Brothers film, Devotion, about the lives of the Bronte sisters (also notably talented women, to be recognized, as well). That’s from where Mom’s dedication to writing first blossomed – and it grew for over 70 years!
Mom was a “creative master” 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”. In our family, Mom was the cook, maid, chauffer, doctor, seamstress, counselor, mentor, teacher, and more.
In her home-based business, Mom was the recipe developer, author, illustrator, layout creator, publicist, promotion specialist, public speaker/lecturer and (again) so much more! She was a “Wonder Woman”, who devoted every day to balancing all of it!
As a semi-modernized, yet somewhat old-fashioned housewife-turned-homemaker-turned-entrepreneur, during the 1970s, amidst the Women’s Lib Movement; Mom felt extremely blessed to be able to write (for a living) – and to be able to do it from home. She always said, she made a living with her writing, but it was her writing that made living worthwhile!
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES
As seen in…
No Laughing Matter, by Gloria Pitzer (circa 1970s)
JUST A HOUSEWIFE AND A PRO!
AS A ‘SUBURBAN HOUSEWIFE’, I fail to see how anyone could classify my routine as ‘dull’! For one thing, everyone knows that the mother of an active family has no routine! We’re lucky if we can get our slippers on the right feet first thing in the morning.
In fact, we’re lucky if we can even find those slippers, having to, first, plow through an undergrowth of Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs on the way to the kitchen, where we must witness testy debates over who gets the [prize] in the box of [cereal] and why a 40-year-old man refuses to take the Donald Duck Thermos in his lunch…
What’s wrong with a quest for a roll of Scotch tape that’s your very own or having the phone ring and the call is for you instead of your teenager? [Margaret Mead’s] working definition [of a ‘first-class’ woman, not being a housewife or homemaker,] is a ‘trained, competent, professional woman’.
Now, I’d be the last one to contradict an expert, but in defense of women who become wives and mothers… we have had training (although much of it’s on the job), are extremely competent and are professional [according to Webster’s dictionary] in that we have ‘a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or skill’…
If you don’t think it takes learning or skill to varnish a complex-of-disorder with enough love and efficiency that husbands and children grow up with security and comfort, drop around my kitchen some Sunday night…
No matter what they tell us [working-outside-the-home homemakers] about turning our kids over to a day care center, there’s nothing like coming home from school to know that Mom’s in the kitchen, whipping up a pitcher of Tang and a plate of Twinkies.
The Women’s Civil Rights Movement [aka: “suffrage”] first gained, for women, the right to vote. However, it didn’t stop there. In fact, it evolved into more, advocating for even more equal rights.
Thus, National Women’s History Month also celebrates the triumphs of women’s rights activists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, who lead the feminist movement, also known as Women’s Lib.
The WLM went on to fight for more rights and equality issues to which women were still denied, compared to men – like better job opportunities, equal treatment, fairer wages, advancement prospects, higher education opportunities, sex education, birth control, etc.
Before the Women’s Liberation Movement developed in the 1960s, cooking and cleaning were always deemed “woman’s work”, and it still is (though not as much) throughout most of the world. I actually love cooking and cleaning, myself. I feel accomplished and happy, in feeding others enjoyable food and keeping a clean home.
I always admired how much Mom took on, and balanced, between (what she deemed) her own homemaking and money-making responsibilities. The work of a homemaker is often taken for granted.
From my youngest memories, Mom almost always worked from home (or, when away, while we were in school). She was always able to harmonize her various jobs – those that paid her money and those that paid her in kisses and hugs from us.
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES
As seen in…
“No Laughing Matter”; a syndicated column by Gloria Pitzer
(date unknown; circ. 1970s)
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR…
WITH ALL DUE RESPECT to Women’s Lib, I don’t think they can help me. I think they’ve done enough for me already! Frankly, I think I was doing alright before they came along. At least I could get a seat on a bus. Now I’m lucky if a man will offer to hold my packages for me.
I can also remember when cutting the grass was considered “man’s work”. These days my husband flips me two-out-of-three to see which of us gets the lawn mower and who will fix the iced tea and sit on the patio chair to watch.
Last week, I was visited by a new militant group of women in our neighborhood who are protesting the proposed 4-day work week for MEN. They advocated a simple test. If you cannot get through a two-week vacation and the Christmas holidays with a man who over-waters your house plants and alphabetizes your refrigerator then how can you get through a three-day weekend, 52 weeks out of the year?
For you must then decide if you have to run the sweeper [aka: vacuum] while he’s taking a nap, or does he have to take a nap while you’re running the sweeper. Arguing with a husband (especially when he’s your own), is like taking a shower/bath in a scuba outfit. But I have a theory!
There are some things in this liberated life, which a woman just cannot control. You have tasted instant failure when neither of you can agree on who gets custody of the only controls on the electric blanket; and if it’s fair that she who makes the garbage must also carry it out; and whose mother calls more – yours or his?
This is the same man who warned me not to go into labor on his bowling night and who, on Christmas, gave me a monogrammed tool box and a gift certificate from Sunoco for an oil change and lube job, and a can of Easy-Off in my stocking.
The liberating females of our society have missed the joy of knowing what it means to live with a man who claims he’s always out of socks, but YOU know there are two more pairs in the drawer and [of course] only YOU can find them!
Most husbands are generally quite liberal with their wives in spite of the ‘Lib Movement’… I’ll have you know that my husband has always allowed me to make all sorts of important decisions – like: ‘Does that child need a nap?’ ‘Should that baby have her pants changed?’ ‘Do you really need another new pant suit?’ ‘Must your mother call here every day?’ ‘Should we recognize Red China?’ ‘Will they find Howard Hughes?’
The only liberation I want is to get away from the kids once in a while, without having the school counselor label me as a parent who doesn’t care. When you cannot free yourself from the oven encased in molten lasagna and apple pie fossils, you know that liberation is but a piper’s dream in your soap opera saga.
On the other hand, my husband takes a realistic approach to my emancipation. He claims women have never had it so good… (What does HE know?) His trying to tell me about women’s rights is like trying to tell General Eisenhower about World War II. However, I look at it this way: ‘Either give me liberty… OR GIVE ME A CLEANING LADY!’
LAST THOUGHTS…
In one of Mom’s “No Laughing Matter” columns, from the 1970s (not sure what date it was actually published in the papers, where it was syndicated), called ‘Where Have All Our Homemakers Gone?’, she wrote:
‘The full-time homemaker is, unfortunately, being short-changed by today’s ‘paycheck-oriented’ society and, if Women’s Lib have their own way, ‘homemaker’ will be a 4-letter word… the women who, either by choice or by circumstance, make a career out of making a home.’
It’s been 50 years since the Women’s Liberation Movement developed. I’m constantly amazed at the timelessness of the issues about which Mom wrote. The old adage is true – “the more things change, the more they stay the same!”
IN CLOSING…
In honor of March, being National Sauce Month, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for “Punch-A-Train Rarebit Sauce”; as seen in her self-published cookbook… Eating Out at Home (National Home News, St. Clair, MI; September 1978, p. 22).
P.S. Food-for-thought until we meet again, next Monday…
March celebrates, among other things… Irish-American Heritage Month, National Caffeine Awareness Month, National Celery Month, National Craft Month, National Flour Month!
Also being observed this week is… National Procrastination Week [which is the first two weeks in March (1st-14th or 5th-18th, for 2023) or whenever it’s convenient], National Words Matter Week, and Read An e-Book Week (all, 5th-11th for 2023).
Today is… National Frozen Food Day, National Oreo Cookie Day, and National White Chocolate Cheesecake Day!
Tomorrow is… National Flapjack Day, National Cereal Day, and National Crown of Roast Pork Day!
Wednesday, March 8th is… National Oregon Day, National Peanut Cluster Day, and National Proofreading Day!
Thursday, March 9th is… National Crabmeat Day, National Get Over it Day, and National Meatball Day!
Friday, March 10th is… National Blueberry Popover Day and National Pack Your Lunch Day!
Saturday, March 11th is… National Johnny Appleseed Day and National Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day!
March 12th is… National Baked Scallops Day, National Plant a Flower Day, and National Girl Scout Day, which is also the start of Girl Scout Week (for 2023)! Plus, as the second Sunday in March (for 2023), it’s also… National Daylight Saving Time Day – spring forward! Additionally, on this day…
…10 down and 42 to go!
Happy Monday and happy International Women’s Week, as well as International Women’s Day! Aren’t Mondays marvelous? I always look forward to Mondays because they are my #52Chances each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with all of you!
As I mentioned last week, the whole month of March is celebrating, among other things, National Women’s History Month. Additionally, Saturday was the kick-off of International Women’s Week [which starts the first Saturday in March]. PLUS, today is also International Women’s Day! That makes this a really great time (to the third power) for celebrating women around the world!
Today, this week, and all month we’re celebrating women’s achievements –socially, spiritually, economically, educationally and politically. Furthermore, this day is also dedicated to bringing world-wide awareness to gender equality – or rather the continued lack of it!
According to NationalDayCalenar.com, “In many parts of the world, women are less likely to own land, a business, or attend school. Education alone is a powerful tool leading to financial independence for women. Their children reap the rewards, often for generations to come.”
As an avid reader, Mom often promoted, in her many food-for-thought articles, the benefits of always trying to learn something new each and every day.
“My mother had many sayings. She would say, ‘Kamala, you may be the first to do many things; make sure you’re not the last.’ Which is why I said [in my victory speech], ‘I will be the first, but I will not be the last.’ And that’s about legacy. That’s about creating a pathway. That’s about leaving the door more open than it was when you walked in.” – Kamala Harris, Dec. 2020, TIME’s Person of the Year.
Back in December, when I heard this statement (above) in Kamala Harris’ interview with Time, as one of their two persons of the year for 2020, I was so impressed! I think my mom would’ve been, also, for that was the kind of “legacy” she wanted and tried to leave.
Like Kamala’s mom, my mom had many positive sayings too – those she picked up from her own mother, those she developed through her life-long faith, and others she created from her own comedic talents combined with her real-life experiences as a “working-woman in a man’s world”.
Through many of her inspirational, food-for-thought articles, geared toward the Women’s-Lib-Movement-fence-sitting-housewives-turned-homemakers (like herself), Mom promoted the importance of identifying our strengths and developing our skills, while always being true to ourselves. She encouraged being a good role model and mentor. “And if you can’t be a lighthouse,” she would say, “at least be a candle!”
What does it mean to leave a legacy? It’s like putting an indelible mark on the future by contributing to forthcoming generations. People naturally want to feel that their life had purpose and mattered to someone. But many wonder how to succeed at such a task.
“How To Leave a Legacy”, by Marelisa Fabrega, at DaringToLiveFully.com, offers up some great advice on the many ways people can leave an everlasting mark in this world BEFORE they’re gone. I loved her analogy about how to know if you’re successfully leaving a legacy (or not) by picturing your 80th birthday party! Marelisa wrote:
“Everyone you’ve had an impact on, or have influenced in some way, is there. As they get up to toast you on your birthday, what would you like them to say about you? That’s what you want your life to stand for.”
My family helped me put together a wonderful 80th birthday party for Mom! However, her birthday is in early January – when we Michiganders are usually dealing with snow storms and that weekend, of Mom’s party, was no exception! Thus there were a lot of guests who couldn’t make the drive.
The expected large party turned out to be quite small. We were almost disappointed, if not for those who did make it; because Mom heard so many wonderful memories from them – things about her genuine care, her heart-warming friendship, and the positive impacts she made in their lives! In most cases, Mom didn’t even realize she had done so much.
I imagine Mom would’ve really been flabbergasted by the tribute our local museum paid her just a few years ago, after her passing. Every year, the St. Clair Historical Museum puts on a presentation called “The Next 10”, paying tribute to 10 former residents, (people no longer with us) who contributed greatly to our community.
Their Fall 2018 presentation included my mom as one of “The Next 10”. I was so happy to contribute what I could when a few different people, working on the project, contacted me for information, stories, photos and other materials. They put on a beautiful slideshow presentation for each of the 10 legacy honorees; and each one had a different “speaker”, presenting the family’s and community’s memories of them.
So many friends and family members of those honored filled the room. I felt very privileged to be among them – to feel all the love in the room was tremendous! I was especially pleased during the social that followed, because they served ice cream with a batch of Mom’s Sanders-Style Hot Fudge Sauce that someone had lovingly made for the event! Here’s an encore copy of one of her versions – I shared this version last April, on WHBY’s “Good Neighbor” show, with Kathy Keene:
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. 88)
TELEVISION COULD DO so much to better inform and entertain us in a positive way, but it hasn’t. Responsible journalism has many times, succumb to irresponsible hashing and rehashing of tragedies in the world, and man’s inhumanity to man, when there is still so much good going on that could be reported. There ARE good things happening.
There are people behaving with compassion, people constructively setting a worthy example to follow. There are government officials who are representing those who elected them, in a responsible and respectable way. There is good taking place all over the world.
Reporting such events along with the tragedies, would give balance to the news and reinstate public trust and faith in responsible journalism. Where and how does such a change begin, but with the individual. Separately or collectively, opinions can be directed to news agencies at every level of the media.
RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM
“Give me not your headlines of murder and deceit,
But tell me of the better things that make our lives complete.
Fill page one with happenings that speak of loving giving.
Fill a column with advice on better ways of living.
Tell me of the births today, they are our salvation.
Let death take a holiday. Tell me of creation.”
– James Grimes
There are the obvious monetary inheritances we can leave behind – cash and other such assets for our heirs (to serve as foundations on which to build their own financial futures and legacies), money bequeathed to charities that are dear to our hearts, or scholarship fund endowments for future students.
“The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives… The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day.” – Bill Graham
But leaving a great legacy isn’t about what we’ve accumulated in money, assets, or position. More accurately, it’s about how we can use what we have to improve, around us, whomever and/or whatever needs it. Here are some examples I’ve gathered on how we can leave our own legacies behind through our…
WORK: by starting our own businesses and adding knowledge and new skills to our chosen fields. We could also start non-profit organizations in our communities, creating neighborhood recycling programs, gardens, parks, or playgrounds – to name a few different legacies. Or we could be volunteers, passing on our own expertise from hard work and experiences. We could even leave a legacy by “working” to right a wrong.
#NationalWriteDownYourStoryDay
WRITING: by authoring a book. We could write our memoirs, capturing the essence of who we are by penning our family-traditions, life-lessons, values, accomplishments, beliefs and hopes. In fact, next Sunday is National Write Down Your Story Day! We could also write “legacy letters” to our loved ones – including everything we’d want to say if we knew we didn’t have long to live.
ELECTRONIC RECORDS: by recording videos of ourselves – either one or many. We could also create websites dedicated to the kinds of legacies we’d like to leave behind for future generations. Likewise, we could write blogs to post on those websites!
ANCESTRY: by passing on to our descendants some of their “roots” through traditionally family-held heirlooms, like generational bibles, wedding rings, and/or wedding dresses; as well as irreplaceable, handmade afghans, quilts, recipe collections, photo albums, journals and scrapbooks.
‘WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER, do better. Just because you are not doing wrong doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing right. Remember the importance of setting a good example. The things we do each day influences others.’ – Gloria Pitzer, This is not a Cook Book! It’s Gloria Pitzer’s Food for Thought (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 24)
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Reliable Recipes For Reluctant Cooks (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1983, p. 8)
BE SOMETHING TO SOMEONE!
BEING APPRECIATED FOR what you are and the good you can offer is one of the greatest rewards for trying to improve one’s life. The real test comes when there seems to be no one to appreciate you and you have to face the temptation for crumbling under self-pity or pretending that it doesn’t matter – that you can make it alone if you have to.
The test of real strength comes with the realization that you are alone. That’s when you have to make the decision to give up or stand up! It’s never easy, but no one ever promised that it would be! Being alone and yet surrounded by people makes the feeling of the famished affections one of the most challenging aspects of nourishment today… Be something to someone!
IN CLOSING…
In honor of this week also being National Girl Scout Week and National Girl Scout Day being on Friday, here is Mom’s “secret recipe” for imitating their Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 224)
P.S. Food-for-thought until we meet again, next Monday…
Don’t forget – the whole month of March is still celebrating, among other things: Irish-American Heritage Month, National Caffeine Awareness Month, National Celery Month, National Craft Month, National Flour Month, and National Sauce Month!
Furthermore, one of the many celebrations for last week and this whole week is aimed at National Procrastination Week – which is actually celebrated during the first TWO weeks in March (or whenever it’s convenient)!
And some other celebrations for this week include: Sunday, March 7, was the start of the 1st FULL week in March (7th-13th for 2021), which celebrates Words Matter Week and Read an E-Book Week (see below)!
Today, March 8, is also National Oregon Day, National Peanut Cluster Day, and National Proofreading Day!
Tuesday, March 9, is… National Barbie Day, National Crabmeat Day, National Get Over it Day, and National Meatball Day! In honor, here is a re-share of Mom’s imitation for meatballs like Win Schuler’s:
Wednesday, March 10, is… National Blueberry Popover Day, National Pack Your Lunch Day, and National Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day [the 2nd Wednesday in March] !
Thursday, March 11, is… National Johnny Appleseed Day, National Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day, and National Worship of Tools Day!
Friday, March 12, is… National Baked Scallops Day and National Plant a Flower Day!
Saturday, March 13, is… National Good Samaritan Day, National Coconut Torte Day, and National Open an Umbrella Indoors Day!
Sunday, March 14 is… National Children’s Craft Day, National Learn About Butterflies Day, National Pi Day, National Potato Chip Day, and Daylight Saving Time Day [the 2nd Sunday in March]!
[Our next visit is scheduled in three weeks – tune in, Monday, March 29th!]
…10 down and another 42 to go!