Chef Blank’s gentle obsession with written recipes belies an influence stronger on his cooking than his culinary library: cooking with others who left profound and lasting impressions on his culinary scope and style.
Among the influences on Blank’s cooking was the formidable kitchen presence of his Würtemburger grandmother, Mary Katherina Blank (1859-c. 1954). Fritz’s first cooking memory is, at age three, helping to make his Oma’s potato salad. After more than fifty years, Blank still makes this salad by the gallon for staff meals and special occasions.
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Title of collection item
Three-year-old Fritz Blank with his Oma, Mary Katherina Blank.
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Photograph.
Date info
Pennsauken, NJ, 1943.
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Title of collection item
Mary Blank’s Cleaver.
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Mary Blank’s cleaver, a retired relic of Chef Fritz’s early cooking days. While his grandmother used the cleaver to dispatch snapping turtles for soup, young Fritz killed chickens with it for family meals.
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single page
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The Apron Ties that Bind
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