New York woman brings back Tulsa food writer's creation
Daily Oklahoman, The (Oklahoma City, OK), November
24, 2004
Cookie cutters
Author: Sharon Dowell; Food Editor
Edition: City
Section: FOOD
Page: 1D
Last month, a small envelope containing an interesting-looking cookie cutter in the shape of Santa Claus landed on my desk.
The red plastic cutter with intricate details on the Santa face and a pebbly interior (designed so cookie dough won't stick to the cutter) introduced me to a part of Oklahoma culinary history I never knew existed and to an Oklahoman who created the unusual cookie cutters decades ago.
The "Jolly Santa" cookie cutter was sent by Carrie Greno, 30, an entrepreneur from upstate New York, who used the cookie cutters as a child. Her grandmother, Bunny Pittenger, purchased sets of the holiday cookie cutters for her children in 1949. And Pittenger's children bought sets of cookie cutters as they started families of their own. That's how Greno became familiar with the cutters as a child.
The cookie cutters were originally created by a Tulsa woman, Mrs. Sam (Nettie) McBirney, who began writing a food column in a Tulsa newspaper in 1934 under the pen name Aunt Chick, so her banker husband wouldn't know of her endeavor. She continued to write about food for almost 20 years in Tulsa, even publishing a pie cookbook in 1942. During the 1930s and '40s, Aunt Chick created several kitchen inventions, including a rolling pin cover originally fashioned from underwear waistbands, according to a 2002 story about McBirney in the Tulsa World.
Aunt Chick began selling her specially designed plastic cookie cutters
in 1948.
"
The plastic embossed molds with pebbled interiors
revolutionized cookie cutters and created a worldwide tradition," Greno
wrote.
England's Princess Margaret purchased a set of Aunt Chick's cookie cutters for Prince Charles in 1952, and Wrigley's Gum purchased tens of thousands of sets of the cookie cutters from Aunt Chick in 1952 and then sold 70,000 sets as a special promotion during a six-week period.
Greno's family was typical of those who faithfully used the cookie molds at holiday time. The cookie cutters were originally marketed in a box with recipes and detailed directions for making the cookies, using the cutters and decorating the cookies.
"My first memory of Christmas cookies was when my grandmother, Bunny Pittenger, let me help decorate Santa cookies in my highchair," Greno recalled. "Every holiday, she would bring out the 'Merry Xmas' set she bought from Aunt Chick back in 1949, and a beloved family tradition was passed on."
Aunt Chick's family company, the Four McB's, produced and marketed the cookie cutters for years after Aunt Chick retired. The food writer died in 1982 at age 96, according to a 2002 story in the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal. By that time, the cookie cutters had become difficult for cookie bakers to find.
Greno's family became interested in locating the molds for the cookie cutters because their supply of Aunt Chick cookie cutters was wearing out from repeated use.
"It was in 2001, after my grandmother passed away, that I decided to bring new life to this cherished tradition," Greno said. "My family had located and bought a production mold to make the original 'Jolly Santa' cookie cutter." Later that year, Greno established the Web site, www.grammascutters.com, and started selling the "Jolly Santa" cookie cutter.
She also located a man in Tulsa who had acquired 18,000 Aunt Chick cookie cutters and had them stored in a warehouse. Greno purchased the entire lot, then took out a small ad that year in the holiday issue of "Martha Stewart Living" magazine. It took her just a few months to recoup her original investment in the cookie cutters.
She then contacted Pat Kimbro, Aunt Chick's granddaughter who lives in northeastern Oklahoma, about buying all rights to the cookie cutter molds. The details took six months to complete before Greno was able to produce and offer sets of the Aunt Chick cookie cutters, including the "Merry Xmas" set with the "Jolly Santa" and a vintage set with a reproduction of the original box in which the cutters were sold.
She now offers not only the holiday set of cookie cutters but a "Happy Days" set with pumpkin face, clown, bunny and snowman cookie cutters; a garden set with various flowers; "Jolly Days" set with an angel and a cowboy; and a "Special Days" set with an American Indian chief and an Old World Santa. Prices for the sets range from $8 to $30.
"We've had orders from every state," Greno said recently during a telephone interview from her home in Bloomfield, N.Y. Oklahomans place many orders, she said, as do people from southern California, where Aunt Chick's family frequently vacationed, and from Michigan, where Aunt Chick lived before coming to Oklahoma. "And I get orders from men who remember their mothers using the cookie cutters years ago," Greno said.
Pat Kimbro, McBirney's granddaughter, has many memories of Aunt Chick and the cookie cutters. She worked for the McBirney family business, "packing those boxes with cutters," she reminisced by telephone. She also provided a few more details about the Oklahoma woman who is a cooking legend.
Aunt Chick, a native of Minnesota, earned a home economics degree from Stout College in Chicago and eventually moved to Muskogee to handle the school lunch program for the public schools there. Later, she moved to Tulsa, where she married Sam McBirney, a prominent Tulsa banker.
"She was determined to teach every woman in the U.S. how to make
pie," Kimbro said.
Greno is now working to recreate pie cutters designed
by Aunt Chick. They'll be part of a pastry kit Greno hopes will
be ready to sell online by mid-2005. She then plans to add more
cookie cutters to the product lineup, including a pilgrim and a
ginger boy. Her goal is to eventually place the cookie cutter sets
in retail outlets.
Greno's Web site includes several of the food columns Aunt Chick wrote for the Tulsa paper, some of Aunt Chick's recipes and other details about her life.
"These cutters make more than just cookies; they are a labor of love that brings family and friends together in the holiday spirit," Greno said.
Sharon Dowell: (405) 475-3304, sdowell@oklahoman.com.
Copyright (c) 2004 Oklahoma Publishing Company
Reprinted with permission from the Daily Oklahoman.