By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1977, p. 5)
ABOUT ONCE A WEEK for over a year, I worked with the homemade potato chip recipe, using every possible idea I could find in other cookbooks and with those who had worked for potato chip manufacturers… The most successful was the simplest recipe of all…
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups potato buds (Betty Crocker – General Mills works best)
½ cup flour
1 TB salt
6 TB corn oil (not solid shortening)
10 TB cold water
INSTRUCTIONS:
Mix potato buds with flour and salt. Combine oil and water then add it to dry mixture until you can shape it with your hands into a stiff ball of dough. Roll out dough to paper thin between two sheets of waxed paper. Invert onto a lightly greased cookie sheet.
Carefully remove top sheet of waxed paper, allowing dough to bake on the remaining sheet supported by the greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Cool 5 minutes and remove the waxed paper. Break into pieces. Salt to taste or coat with either of the two recipes below. Makes 2 quarts of chips.
[NOTE: Store in waxed paper bags, not plastic. Plastic bags will lock in the air and cause the chips to become soft.]
SOUR CREAM CHIP COATING
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1977, p. 5)
INGREDIENTS:
¼ cup non-dairy creamer powder
2 tsp onion salt
INSTRUCTIONS:
Mix ingredients together in roomy bowl. Add broken chips, coating them gently by turning them with your hands. Store in waxed paper bags, not plastic.
BARBECUE CHIP COATING
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1977, p. 5)
INGREDIENTS:
1 tsp paprika
1 TB non-dairy creamer powder
2 tsp onion salt
INSTRUCTIONS:
Mix ingredients together in roomy bowl. Add broken chips, coating them gently by turning them with your hands. Store in waxed paper bags, not plastic.
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in… The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; Nov. 1978, 4th Printing; p. 12)
INGREDIENTS:
¾ cup peanut butter
½ cup soft butter or margarine
½ cup light corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
4 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
¾ cup chopped peanuts or other nuts
INSTRUCTIONS:
Mix [first 5 ingredients as listed] well. Gradually stir in confectioners’ sugar. Knead until smooth. Gradually add nuts. Pack into an 8”x8”x2” pan. When firm, cut into squares. Makes about 2 pounds.
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in her self-published cookbook… The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1978, p. 12).
POPCORN IS NOT a junk food. It is a source of fiber and contains B-complex vitamins – niacin, thiamine, and riboflavin, as well as vitamin E. [NOTE:] Popcorn will pop better if you leave it in the freezer for a full 24 hours before using.
[Related excerpt from page 13: Most true peanut fanciers disdain the readily available commercial brands for more specialized versions. Since half of all peanuts grown in the United States (circ 1978) are dedicated to peanut butter, unearthing superior roasted and processed peanuts strictly for munching is not that easy.
Moreover, the peanut, in its raw state, is rising in popularity due to today’s (circ 1978) growing core of health food devotees wanting to get the most from its nutritional value (peanuts are high in protein and vitamin B-1).]
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup raw, shelled peanuts
5 quarts popped corn
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or regular margarine
2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
½ cup light corn syrup
1 tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
INSTRUCTIONS:
Sauté peanuts in 2 tablespoons of the butter or margarine about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Spread freshly popped corn in a large, shallow sheet pan. Put it in a [250°F oven] to keep warm and crisp. Fold in peanuts.
Combine [rest of] butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a 2-qt, heavy sauce pan. Place over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Continue to boil to the “firm ball stage” (248°F), about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda. Syrup will foam.
Take popped corn from oven and pour hot caramel mixture over it in a fine stream. Stir to mix well. Return to oven for 45-50 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Cool and serve or store. To store, pour into air-tight containers and set in a cold place. Makes about 5 quarts.
Today is, among other things, National Labor Day – an Americana celebration of the contributions and achievements of American workers to our country’s economic strength, prosperity, and well-being. Labor Day also celebrates the improvements of working conditions and fair compensation that were gained through the efforts of the American labor movement.
The labor force is comprised of people who are either working or actively looking for work, including self-employed entrepreneurs; those who’ve been leaving their jobs, with which they weren’t happy, due to low pay/benefits, physical strains, mental health concerns, and much more – going out to start their own businesses, living the Americana dream.
According to The Great Resignation: Everything You Need To Know (Jun 29, 2022) at TechTarget.com, the “Great Resignation” started when “employees across multiple sectors came to the realization that they weren’t happy with their jobs during the pandemic. People weren’t satisfied with their work environment, the industry they were in or their work-life balance and left their jobs.” Leaving a job to open one’s own business isn’t really a new crusade.
A significant growth in entrepreneurships also began early in the new millennium, after banks began losing money, the housing market collapsed, and major auto makers declared bankruptcy. The domino effect was felt throughout districts, nation-wide, as businesses were forced to close their doors due to the “Great Recession”, beginning in 2007.
Another similar event occurred more than 30 years prior, when Mom (and Dad) faced the same uncertainty in the 1970s recession, when Mom left her job at the newspaper, in 1973, to start her own business; which evolved over the years, eventually becoming known as Secret RecipesTM, with her Recipe DetectiveTM brand recognized world-wide.
By 1976, Dad needed to take an early retirement from his job at the sign company to help Mom full-time, with the family business. Today, more than 160 countries observe their own Labor Days, celebrating the accomplishments of their own labor movements and the continued evolution of improving working conditions for everyone, everywhere.
Many people like to celebrate this Americana holiday with parades honoring the labor force, community picnics, backyard barbeques, sports events, and the like. The annual Mackinac Bridge Walk on Labor Day is going on, as well!
Moreover, a lot of families also like to take advantage of summer’s last, long weekend, by going on one more family vacation before the kids go back to school.
As I’ve mentioned many times, Mom liked to celebrate AFTER Labor Day, when my siblings and I went back to school, and she found reprieve in her own workload (and well-being). She always said, jokingly of course, THAT was when her vacation began.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
School Begins and so Does Mother’s Vacation
By Gloria Pitzer (Algonac, MI; Aug. 1971)
NEVER MIND WHAT THE calendar says about the longest day of summer. It doesn’t really fall in June. It falls somewhere during the last week of August, as mothers everywhere breathlessly await the beginning of another school year!
When listening to a child lick a postage stamp in the next room begins to give me a headache and the cat seems to be stomping his paws and even my Mixmaster and my vacuum cleaner sound like mini bikes, I know it’s time for school to start.
This is what happens when you live with children who believe that the same door they left open all winter should be slammed all summer. And all I have to show for 10 weeks of summer, is a tape recording of 400 hours of the kids next door, gunning their motorcycles under my kitchen windows; which I felt would make a lovely remembrance for their mother who has been out, working in a pleasant, air-conditioned office.
Someday, she may want to know what she missed while her boys were growing up. I can tell her what she missed – migraines, excessive nervous acidity and hives, that’s what!
The first 8 weeks of summer rushed past us so quickly – it was like catching quicksilver in greased gloves. Suddenly, there was our 15-year old [son], telling us he needed back-to-school clothes; but he’d like some new blue jeans that didn’t look like new blue jeans.
Honestly, I don’t know where you can buy new blue jeans with broken zippers, frayed hems, worn seats and patched knees. He [also] said he had wished he had bought his school shoes last month, so he could have had plenty of time to scuff up the toes and run the heels over before school started; then, nobody would accuse him of wearing Sunday school clothes.
It is during the [unofficial] last week of summer that my Avon lady sends me a CARE package and my mother apologizes for not having had the children visit her more often before they had to go back to school.
I receive fliers from the drug store advertising Christmas wrappings and ribbons, and you can’t find a 99-cent Styrofoam cooler anywhere in town for the Labor Day picnic you wish you didn’t have to attend, because any picnic with 5 children is no PICNIC!
It is during the [unofficial] last week of summer that I’m ready to vote ‘yes’ in a school bond issue and school supplies that were on sale in July are being replaced on dime store counters by Halloween candy and costumes.
It is during the [unofficial] last week of summer that a neighbor stops by to see if he ever returned the lawn mower he borrowed from us and is disappointed when he learns he didn’t because he wanted to borrow it again!
Actually, the longest day of summer can make one weak – especially if she’s a mother!
In case you haven’t heard, September is also, among other things, National Americana Month. Americana is considered the patriotic nostalgia, usually associated with the U.S.’s culture and history – especially from the Native Americans, the colonial era, and the mid-20th century. Given our melting-pot foundation, Americana could include just about anything.
Traditional Americana is mainly represented by food, art, music, literature, and the like – anything that is stereotypical American, such as red, white, and blue. Examples are likened to Norman Rockwell’s art work, which appeared on over 300 covers of the weekly edition of The Saturday Evening Post, for many years.
Rockwell depicted the simple, small-town, middle-class lifestyle of Americans as humble, God-fearing people enjoying a strong and prosperous family life – with Americana-styled elements like Coca-Cola memorabilia, blue-collar workers, white-picket fences, denim jeans, baseball, and apple pie.
As the first FULL week in September, it’s also… National Waffle Week! Therefore, here’s a re-share of Mom’s copycat recipe for “Waffle Hows Waffles”, as seen in one of her early, self-published cookbook, The Second Helping of Secret Recipes – Fast Foods and Other Favorites (National Homemaker’s Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1977, p. 37).
September 8th is… National Ampersand Day! Plus, as the second Thursday in September (for 2022), it’s also… National School Picture Day! Unofficially, Thursday is also the start of the NFL’s regular football season. Happy football season, Dad!
By Gloria Pitzer, as seen in The Second Helping of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1977, p. 30)
INGREDIENTS:
½-lb almond paste
2 or 3 egg whites
¼ tsp salt
1 cup fine granulated sugar
½ cup Powdered sugar
INSTRUCTIONS:
Knead almond paste with hands until soft then break into small pieces. Put egg whites with salt in bowl of [countertop] electric mixer. Add sugar and almond paste (a little at a time), mixing until all is added, and mixture is smooth and thick. Beat in powdered sugar, up to ½ cup if necessary, to make batter thick enough to hold its shape.
Cover baking sheets with 2 layers of heavy brown paper. Drop batter onto paper by teaspoonfuls, into mounds about 2 inches apart. Bake at 300°F until lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes.
Remove from oven. Slide paper off baking sheet onto a damp dish towel folded to same size as baking sheet. Let stand until macaroons are cool or can be removed from paper with small metal spatula. Cool on wire racks. Store in tightly covered container. Makes 3 to 4 dozen.
Happy Monday! Personally, I always look forward to Mondays because they are my 52 Chances each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with all of you!
Today is National Write Down Your Story Day! This is me – I’ve always loved to write, draw, and create/craft things (like Mom), since I was a young girl. Skills in the arts seem to run in my family’s bloodline. If there is such a thing as an artistic gene, my family seems to be blessed with it.
Art, writing, and creativity were always encouraged and nurtured by our parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles – whenever we created anything. Mom inspired me in so many ways…as a writer, artist, crafter, homemaker, cook, mother, teacher… The list goes on.
Except for a few of my teen years, when I thought I knew more than she did, I was always amazed at how Mom managed to start her own business and juggle all of those other responsibilities and hobbies; along with a husband, 5 kids, and a dog for which to care.
During the last few years of Mom’s life, I got to know her in a whole new way – one that I missed out on in my self-centered teen years. That was when I helped her re-write her favorite, self-published cookbook, Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (1982), so it could be re-published for a new digital generation, by someone else this time.
For decades, Mom didn’t want any of her cookbooks to be published by a company that wanted to change her creations. But times changed, lives changed, situations changed, and attitudes changed. After much research, the publisher we chose for the project (Balboa Press) didn’t want to change much of anything.
I had to edit a few illustrations (because of their likeness to KFC’s “Colonel”). That wasn’t an issue to Mom. However, they also wanted to change the book’s title (as it too closely resembled Betty Crocker’s title). At first, we thought this was going to be a deal-breaker.
I couldn’t get Balboa to understand that imitation was the premise of the whole book, including the title. They wouldn’t budge – so Mom and I collaborated on another title by simply re-arranging the words on the cover of the original book. That was close enough to a new imitation of the original imitation, so Mom was happy.
Additionally, I had to change the recipes’ layout a little bit because of the digital revolution and printed format we chose for the final product. Mom and I also decided to omit some parts of the original book due to outdated information or something else. Years ago, Mom would’ve said, “Never! I’m not changing a thing!”
Over the years she found that it’s better to go with the flow than swim against the tide. Re-reading Mom’s creative “Food for Thought” articles and discussing them with her during the re-write process, brought us closer together, in a whole new way. Mom’s favorite thing in life was to write. She also loved to mentor those who shared her love!
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop (Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes, 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.
‘When you’re wishing for a happier, fuller life, a life with real meaning, there’s a need to remain steadfastly receptive to intuitions & inspirations that whisper to the listening thought of hope & courage.’– Gloria Pitzer [as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes Newsletter (St. Clair, MI; Issue 183, Nov-Dec 1997; p. 10)
I can only hope I’ve made Mom proud of what I’m doing with her legacy of love… especially regarding these blog posts, her website content, and her last cookbook. I’m trying to develop and promote them, in her memory and honor, with the love and passion that she inspired in me. I’ll be honest, though – while I love to write, promoting and selling are not my forte, as they were Mom’s.
One of my favorite and youngest memories of me & Mom is when she taught me how to write the alphabet and my name, from how to hold the pencil to how to draw the letters to how to form the words by putting those wonderful letters together.
Much like Mom, when I was growing up, I was always drawing, reading, and writing little stories, as well as a lot of poetry. English was also my favorite subject throughout school. I always loved the essay assignments the most!
Me and Mom
My road block, however, is promoting and selling; which is much more of a learning process for me, while it just seemed to come naturally for Mom. Luckily, I love to learn! Another one of the things Mom inspired in me is my passion to learn – she’d always say, “learn something new every day!”
Nowadays, knowledge is literally and instantaneously at our finger tips! For most of my life, I was a bookworm. I continue to love the hard copy in my hands; but now, I’m also a world-wide-web-worm! There’s so much out there from which to learn!
But you have to be self-motivated and self-inspired to grab the book or the computer and open the “pages” and just read, soaking it up like a sponge! Of course, you also have to be able to differentiate between what’s fact and what’s fiction; but that’s a discussion for another time.
LAST THOUGHTS…
‘In doing our best, we run into road blocks we hadn’t counted on; and it is not the falls we take that make the difference, but how well we recover and continue on that matters.’ – Gloria Pitzer, My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop (Gloria Pitzer’s Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. xi)
IN CLOSING…
In honor of TODAY, being National Potato Chip Day, here is Mom’s copycat recipe for Rough All’s Without Ridges, plus 2 chip coating flavors; as seen in her self-published cookbook… The Second Helping Of Secret Recipes (National Homemakers Newsletter, Pearl Beach, MI; July 1977, p. 5).
Additionally, National Procrastination Week is the first two weeks in March, which is either the 1st-14th or the 6th-19th (if it’s the first two FULL weeks)! Basically, you can put this observance off until whenever it’s convenient for you!
1 tsp minced, dried oregano (or ½ tsp oregano powder)
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp salt
10-oz can tomato soup
1-lb pkg. thin spaghetti
INSTRUCTIONS:
[In a large skillet,[ brown beef well. Remove half and put through blender with water, using on/off agitation. Blend until consistency of mortar or pulp. Combine with remaining beef in a 2½-qt saucepan and add everything [as listed], except spaghetti. Simmer for 35 minutes, stirring often.
Cook spaghetti per box instructions, draining well – but DON’T rinse! [It will make the sauce “runny”. Instead, coat spaghetti with 3 TB corn oil to keep it from being “sticky”.]
Spoon sauce over spaghetti on 4-6 individual serving dishes.
QUACKER JACK CARAMEL POPCORN & PEANUTS 
