This week’s feather-quill-in-hand question comes from reader Karen Evers Stanley of Rensselaer, Indiana.
“I have in my cookbook collection your ‘Further From the Farm’ Vol. 3 cookbook from 2010 and on page 131 there is mention of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Rensselaer, owned by Harold and Harriet Evers — my parents,” Karen wrote.
“I love this book with the memories and recipes. I work as a volunteer for the Rensselaer Urban Forestry Council. It has become my passion to increase our urban canopy. Our group has planted more than 1,000 trees. I would like to do a cookbook which I would call ‘Tree to Table’ to educate the public on how trees contribute to our food supply and nutrition. We are a non-for-profit organization. I would be sincerely grateful if you could give me some tips on how to tackle this project. Thank you for your many columns and cookbooks throughout the decades.”
Thank you for your note, Karen. As I mentioned in previous columns and cookbooks, your parents’ restaurant is a fond family memory of my own youth.
My mom Peggy and her family are originally from Jasper County, around the Wheatfield and Rensselaer area. Growing up, we had often eaten at this Kentucky Fried Chicken in Rensselaer while visiting my mom’s mother, our Grandma Green, or visiting my older sister Pam while she attended St. Joseph’s Catholic College from 1984 to 1988. Karen’s parents’ KFC restaurant, which opened in 1971, has a particular distinction since it was the first of these restaurant franchises to open in this part of the Hoosier state. Drop by today and you’ll see it still features lots of memorabilia and photos of the Everses with Col. Sanders.
As for writing and publishing a cookbook, it’s become a peckish (in every definition of that term) project launch in 2026, even for established public personalities, restaurant owners and chefs. In a world where so many recipes are floating about, available with just a few computer keyboard strokes, it has become more challenging to get publishing houses to greenlight a proposed cookbook or any book project.
For my four published hardcover cookbooks in my series, they were released between the years of 2004 to 2019 and all with the same Washington state publisher, Pediment Press, working originally with owner Brad Fenison for the first three books and then his son Chris Fenison for the last book.
My association under the umbrella of my publishing flagship newspapers was certainly key to my books getting published, since the publisher knew of my established readership of two decades.
The fear factors today range from recent (now annual) wildfires, especially those in California and Canada, sending the cost of lumber and paper sky-high, coupled with a diminished attention span of younger generations, who are also the same consumers who lean toward free online content rather than an expectation of having to pay for bound content.
Karen, this doesn’t mean your idea to publish a cookbook can’t happen. In recent years, authors, including novice hopefuls, have successfully written and published books and cookbooks by using “an independent book publisher,” the latter of which often utilizes a paperback format.
Some grant writing for financial backing or underwriting might be necessary to assist you in your inaugural book endeavor, Karen, but never be discouraged from trying out your proposed venture.
It’s never too late, as evidenced during some of my travels in Tennessee in 2009, when my mother, Peggy, and I made a quick detour to tiny Corbin, Kentucky, to see the original eatery where Col. Sanders began selling and marketing his famed Kentucky Fried Chicken. When visiting the Sanders’ Cafe, which offered free tours while still existing as a fully operational KFC for dining, we walked through what was a recreation of the colonel’s office and his first kitchen, including all the original dishes, pots, cutting board and furnishings.
Remember that Sanders, who died at age 90 in 1980, was born and raised a Hoosier in Henryville, Indiana. His business fame and celebrity status came late in life, building his brand of a secret flavor recipe “of 11 herbs and spices” to make “finger lickin’ good chicken.”
In 1964, still an unknown identity to most of our country, with perhaps the exception of the southern states and part of the Midwest, Col. Sanders, at age 74, was one of the “everyday citizen” contestants of the CBS panel game show “I’ve Got A Secret” with host Garry Moore. Holding a check made out for $2 million in his hand, Col. Sanders announced he had just sold his chicken restaurant franchise chain of more than 1,000 restaurants to a larger corporation.
But that was not his “secret” that needed to be guessed correctly by the game show’s celebrity panel of Bill Cullen, Henry Morgan, Bess Myerson and East Chicago’s own plucky blonde claim-to-fame, Betsy Palmer.
Col. Sanders’ secret that he whispered in the ear of Moore and displayed for the audience to see: “I started my restaurant chain business at age 65 about 10 years ago by using my first social security check, which was for $105.”
Today, Col. Sanders’ name and brand identity are internationally known. His fried chicken and restaurants are especially popular in Japan, where there are more than 4,000 statues of the man in white in praise of his fowl recipe. He credited his use of a pressure cooker as one of the reasons his original fried chicken recipe was hailed as so delicious. He said he used his $105 initial “retirement check” for travel to take samples of his fried chicken around the south and Midwest to encourage gas station grills and small diners to purchase his recipe and franchise idea.
One of the most ironic interchanges of Col. Sanders and the celebrity panel during his 1964 appearance on “I’ve Got A Secret” is the panelists’ (especially Henry Morgan with backing from host Moore) universal agreement and insistence that Col. Sanders, clad in his traditional white suit and string tie, along with walking stick and his signature white whiskers and black, horn-rimmed glasses, had a perfect look to be a brand spokesman for commercials. Dry-witted Henry Morgan suggested, “You’d look great on a (liquor) bottle label because you could sell me anything.”
While Col. Sanders’ fried chicken recipe is still top secret, I do have his delicious recipe for “Lemon Sponge Pie” as printed in a tiny keepsake booklet that was a promotional giveaway at his restaurants a half century ago. It’s a refreshing dessert finale after enjoying his fried chicken with all the fixins’.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a weekly radio show host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at PhilPotempa@gmail.com or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Colonel Sanders’ Lemon Sponge Pie
Makes 8 serving slices
INGREDIENTS
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten separately
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup lemon juice
Grated rind of 2 lemons
Cream, butter and flour
Add other ingredients (beat)
DIRECTIONS
1. Have butter room temperature– cream butter and sugar thoroughly and fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.
2. Pour into unbaked 9-inch crust and bake slowly in 350-degree oven for 15 minutes.
3. Reduce to 300 degrees until tests done, about 45 minutes.
