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Recipes were tested and retested and later the results were photographed in house.Ĭlarke fondly remembers the women at the electric company who did most of the baking: Alice, Vera, Olive and Dolly. "Here, they went downtown to get their cookie books."Ĭreating the books was a yearlong process that intensified in fall. "In Chicago, people went downtown to Marshall Field's to see the window displays," Clarke said. (now We Energies headquarters), elaborate setups that showed every cookie in that year's book. On the Monday before Thanksgiving, eager residents would stand in long lines to pick up their free books.Ĭlarke's precisely decorated spritz cookies were destined for the annual public display in the electric company's Public Service Building at 231 W. A time when both electric and gas companies housed up-to-date test kitchens, employed a small army of home economists and offered a wide array of services to customers.īut the most popular service - a cherished tradition - was the annual holiday recipe book: cookie (or "cooky") books from the electric company, "Festive Foods" books (with savory dishes as well as cookies and desserts) from Wisconsin Gas Co. It was 1971, a different era in utility company history. Her mission: Use those tweezers to affix tiny colored sugar balls, just so, on each cookie. She was led into the test kitchen, where veteran employees "sat me down at a table with a batch of spritz cookies and handed me a tweezers." Valerie Clarke remembers her first day on the job as a home economist at the old Wisconsin Electric Co.
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