'Baking With Lucy' goes on, as daughter continues late mom's online cooking show

Mary Ellen Raneri hasn’t taken much time to mourn her mother’s passing. She’s been too busy baking.

Her mother, 98-year-old Lucy Pollock, who went viral this year with her “Baking With Lucy” Facebook videos, died Nov. 22 from complications of covid-19.

The Latrobe resident said she feels like she owes it to Lucy’s fans to keep going.

“They’re really like family to us now,” Raneri said. “A family that laughs with you, loves with you, cries with you.”

On Sunday, Raneri and her husband, Phil, shared Lucy’s recipe for peanut butter walnut fudge. On Wednesday, they’ll be back in the kitchen to make coconut orange cookies — a favorite of Lucy’s late husband and Raneri’s father, Michael Pollock.

For anyone who wants to join in, Raneri said. The recipe is posted on the Facebook baking page.

“We’re just gonna keep on going,” she said. “We still have boxes and boxes of (recipes). What we’ve done so far, it’s like a piece of dryer lint on a big sheet — I don’t even know how to describe it.”

When she was younger, Raneri said, she sometimes felt put out when her mother made her pay attention to what she was doing in the kitchen. Now she’s glad for it.

“I always feel like mum’s right there with me when I’m doing it now,” she said. “When we were making fudge, it felt like she was right there over my shoulder, and it turned out perfect.”

After Wednesday’s session, “we’re going to get into some heavy-duty Italian stuff,” Raneri said, including zeppole, a deep-fried pastry that her family served drizzled with warm honey, while Phil’s family preferred powdered sugar.

Mother and daughter spent countless hours during quarantine sifting through those aforementioned boxes of recipes.

Their efforts resulted in a cookbook, “Baking With Lucy in Her Cozy Kitchen,” and a website via which it will be sold.

Unfortunately, Raneri said, bakingwithlucy.com crashed on the first day due to heavy traffic volume. She’s hoping the bugs will be worked out soon and encourages anyone interested to keep checking in.

The website also will have a printable order form for those wishing to order and pay by mail, she said.

One Facebook fan who obtained an early copy called the 222-recipe collection “the only cookbook you’ll ever need,” Raneri said.

“That’s the best compliment you could get,” she said. “My mom would be grinning from ear to ear.”