Radio Digest (Nov 1930-Apr 1931)

^ci pes via Yyadio Batters, Puddins an Stujfin s in Great Stir as Betty Crocker Broadcasts Cooking Lessons I LL NEVER do this again!" exclaimed Betty Crocker as she turned away from the microphone in a middle western Radio station six years ago. In speaking of this first broadcasting experience, Betty Crocker said, "It's hard to realize that only six short years ago I could have been so panic stricken and so sure I had been talking to empty air — -that no one had listened to me or would listen! "I was used to teaching cooking school pupils in a classroom and to standing on a stage platform with hundreds of women watching me as I mixed an angel food cake and explained the why and wherefores of every move I made. Those girls' and women's faces were stimulating. I could tell what they liked best and what they needed. But to sit alone in that silent, empty room talking to an expressionless owl-faced little instrument called a microphone ! No, I couldn't go through that again." B ' UT you did broadcast again, and you've been broadcasting ever since," Betty Crocker was reminded. "What made you change your mind?" She laughed, ''Changing one's mind is a feminine prerogative, I suppose. But I'll tell you what sent me back to the microphone — and with enthusiasm and an assurance that I was doing something really worthwhile. It was the huge pile of letters from women who actually had listened to me!" It must be remembered that those were the days when the Radio was very new and still regarded as a man's plaything. Most of the programs then were in the evening and on Sundays when the men were home to enjoy them. The idea of putting on a morning program just for women seemed so absurd that those who heard of Betty Crocker's new venture shook their heads and declared it wouldn't, it couldn't succeed — that Betty Crocker had better stick to her classroom and community cooking schools. In the first place, they said, women were too busy mornings to sit down and By Pauline Chesnu t listen to the Radio, and even if a few did listen— how could you teach them cooking when they couldn't see you stirring your cake batter or mixing your bread dough? It is little wonder after all this that Betty Crocker considers the reading of that first pile of Radio letters as the most thrilling experience of her life. What a panorama they unrolled before her of the lives of her listeners ! Letters from lonely What's Your Problem? Z/J.AVE you a little problem in your home? If you have, consult the Woman's Page Editor, who will be pleased to give her expert advice in an endeavor to solve it for you. This Department also invites its readers to send in their suggestions for subjects which they would like to have discussed in these pages. women living on farms miles away from their nearest neighbors wrote that they regarded her as a friendly neighbor dropping in of a morning to discuss recipes. Discouraged women in towns and cities hailed her as the friend they had secretly longed to know whom they could turn to for advice and encouragement. One letter in particular stood out from all the others in that first Radio mail, and impressed on Betty Crocker the marvelous opportunities that the Radio offered her of being truly a friend in need to women whom she never could have reached in years of teaching cooking in a classroom and from the stage platform. The letter was from a nineteen-year-old bride who said that she and her twentyyear-old husband had been married just a few months. She wrote to Betty Crocker: "You probably will be surprised to know that your talk yesterday and the recipes you gave for a delicious one-dish meal have saved me from a divorce. When we got married, we both thought I'd just naturally know how to cook nice meals for him. But. oh. Miss Crocker! Everything went wrong when I tried to cook. Something in the oven would burn while I was watching something on top of the stove, and I really didn't know how to do a thing right. He'd come home and just look at what I'd fixed on the table or maybe he would take one taste. Then he'd say. T can't eat that stuff' — and slam out of the house and go downtown to a restaurant to eat, while I'd just sit at home and cry over my terrible failures. "The Radio happened to be going yesterday and I heard you telling about that one-dish meal. You made it sound so good and so easy to make that I thought maybe I could do it. I wrote down every bit of it and fixed it up just as you said — and then I made the salad you told about to go with it. When he saw those things on the table. I wish you could have seen his face, and then heard him when he tasted them. He just couldn't believe I'd fixed them up all myself. After supper he dried the dishes for me, and we went to a movie. Oh, Miss Crocker! I can't thank you enough, and I can hardly wait to hear you again." A: .S THE days went on, Betty Crocker returned regularly to the studio to broadcast. She was no longer conscious of the silent, empty room, and the owl-faced microphone. She was visiting with her new friends. "You see," she explained, "I have been anticipating televi>ion in a reverse sort of fashion — for instead of my listeners seeing me, I always see them and feel that I am right there in their homes whether they are isolated farms, kitchen{Cont'mucd on page, 108) i