FRESNO — This recipe is from the late Dr. Harold H. “Buzz” Baxter’s essential international food and history website, The Gutsy Gourmet. Dr. Baxter’s website is dedicated to his beloved mother, Gladys Bertha Baxter, who was born in Fresno on July 1, 1908. “At The Gutsy Gourmet, it is my sole purpose to introduce you to some of the best recipes from around the world, and to share some of my own personally developed recipes and those of my mother who taught me how to cook from the very beginning,” he said.
“My mother’s family were Armenian immigrants from the Bitlis area of Turkey. She was the youngest of eight children, and had five older sisters who were excellent cooks, as was her mother. She naturally learned from all of them, and became one of the most respected Armenian cooks in Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley. She had no difficulty in cooking for two or two hundred people. She seldom consulted a cookbook and measuring devices were seldom used in her cooking. A pinch of this and a scoop of that was all that was needed to perform magic in her kitchen, and many unforgettable family meals and celebrations. In 1930, she married my father, Avedis Baxter, an auto mechanic from Fowler. They had two sons to whom she taught her culinary and domestic skills. Ironically, my mother spent her last few years with Alzheimer’s disease that caused her to forget her amazing skills in Armenian cooking. In her memory, I felt it incumbent upon me to celebrate her love of cooking and food by sharing her recipes and our family’s history and traditions,” said Dr. Baxter.
“Growing up in Fresno, Buzz began his interest in cooking at an early age. During his preschool years he was tied to his mother’s apron strings, watching every move she made in the family kitchen. Not only was his mother a fabulous cook, he remembered that she almost never used a cookbook. ‘If you think it will make it taste good, do it,’ said his mother. By the time Buzz was in high school he could cook almost anything he liked to eat. If he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t cook it. He left home and went to college at the age of 16, and was capable enough to take care of himself and his roommate in school.”
“In 1949, he entered Reedley College as a freshman to major in Business Administration and to play football. He had not yet attained the maturity to buckle down to college studies, so he left Reedley College and went to work for an uncle who owned a famous resort called California Hot Springs. The California Hot Springs Resort is located within the Sequoia National Monument in the central southern Sierra Nevada mountains. There he acted as life guard at the resort’s pool, and did a variety of maintenance jobs.”
“Buzz attended San Francisco State College in 1950, and played football for one semester before enlisting in the United States Coast Guard for a 3-year enlistment. To help pay for his schooling, he worked for Campbell Bros. & Sunbeam Toastmaster in the shipping department. At college, he became acquainted with a couple of Italian boys whose families had restaurants in San Francisco. They worked in the restaurant kitchens, and many of their Italian recipes rubbed off on the Armenian kid from Fresno.”
“Many of the recipes at The Gutsy Gourmet are not normally found in your basic cookbooks. They are a collection of recipes I’ve gathered from around the world that I love to make, and that my friends have always raved about. They may seem difficult at first, but they are really quite simple. They do, in large part, take a little time to prepare. They are not all what you would call low-fat, but many are healthy and nutritious,” said Buzz.
