Food

By KELLY PREW
Food Editor

Guests walk through the immaculate kitchen in Pat Savage's Tyler residence before entering a brightly lit sitting room decorated impeccably in blue and white oriental style.

As welcoming as her home, Mrs. Savage offers a seat, something to drink and a warm smile to visitors.

Nominated for "Who's Cooking" by friend Eileen Gottschalk, Mrs. Savage is happy to share her time and a special recipe with the Tyler Paper.

She talks reminiscently about her childhood, her first memories of being in the kitchen with her mother and how those experiences prepared her for marriage and motherhood, volunteerism and as a mentor.

"There were seven in my family," she says. "My other siblings were working, and I was the youngest female to work with Mother. We grew up in The Depression and didn't know we were poor. We always had fun, you know."

Mrs. Savage says her job was prep work, shopping, chopping and mixing, but says it was her mother who knew the recipes by heart.

"When I got married, my husband was in the Navy (and we moved away)," she says. "I was going to make a meatloaf and realized I didn't know what to do! I had always worked side by side with Mother and had never put one together. I knew what (ingredients) went into it.

"The thing about being away from home is you don't think about things like that until you're by yourself."

But the one thing Mrs. Savage had on hand was confidence in the kitchen. She had no trouble figuring things out and becoming somewhat of a well-known cook in the process.

The Savages moved to Tyler in the 1960s, and since that time, there are circles of folks in which her name is legend.

For 11 years she oversaw Bishop T.K. Gorman High School's lunch program of soups, sandwiches, pizza, hot dogs and more for about 150 students daily. It was a role she says she "just drifted into," and that stuck for more than a decade.

She takes little credit for fixing the food, except when turkey and dressing for Thanksgiving or beans and potato salad were requested.

"The first time I went to buy potatoes for the potato salad, I remembered my mother telling me to count on one potato per person," she says. "So I counted out 10 pounds of potatoes and knew how many pounds I needed to buy."

She has served more than 400 homemade hot rolls at T.K. Gorman athletic banquets before there was a kitchen in proximity to the gym. She made more than 40 lemon meringue pies in a day and more recently, 1,600 cookies in her own kitchen, always insisting on "from scratch recipes."

"The day I made the 1,600 cookies, I got up at 6 a.m. and got started," she says with a knowing grin. "Eileen was going to help, but by the time she got there about 2 0'clock that afternoon, I was almost finished.

"When I started cleaning up, I felt like I had really accomplished something that day."

Of her pie-making episode, she says matter-of-factly and with one raised eyebrow, "I got a wild hare that year."

There are all sorts of stories from her family kitchen - a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie project by one son that turned out well; an experiment with German Chocolate Pie that didn't go as well for an over-achieving 8-year-old daughter, among others.

But of all the stories, there is one she tells on herself.

"I remember this because my son was killed in November, and my daughter was in a Christmas play (a few weeks later)," she says. "I was trying to make 400 rolls at the same time, and knew I needed to be at the play - we were all still coping.

"So I thought I would mix the dough, catch Chris in the play, leave as soon as she was done. We lived on Copeland Road then, and by the time I got home - it was only 30 or 45 minutes - the dough was coming out of the pan and was all over the front of the cabinets.

"That was weird. The dough rose faster than I had expected, and I called a neighbor to come help. I was afraid I was going to lose (all the dough)!"

The end result was a "save." The rolls survived.

Now, Mrs. Savage lives alone but manages to cook for herself on a daily basis and for others who visit or when her expertise is needed.

Pat Savage stands in her kitchen on Wednesday, July 30th. Savage once made 1,600 cookies in one day, starting at 6 a.m. and finishing at 2 p.m.
(Staff Photo By Tom Turner)