97-year-old Latrobe resident’s Facebook baking page going strong; cookbook in the works

At a friend’s suggestion, Mary Ellen Raneri of Latrobe posted a video on Facebook of her 97-year-old mother baking one of her time-tested recipes.

That single video in March led to the “Baking With Lucy” Facebook page as a way for the pair to offer connection and encouragement to others during quarantine.

Six months later, Lucy Pollock is still baking up a storm for more than 24,000 followers in the kitchen of the home she shares with her daughter and son-in-law.

With Mary Ellen’s husband, Phil Raneri, shooting video with his phone, Pollock leads viewers through a Sunday baking session and also does occasional chats on more cooking and baking topics, along with sharing some personal memories.

Now, Raneri says, she and her mother also are combing through Pollock’s vast collection of “faded recipes, family treasures and yellowed newspaper clippings” for a cookbook coming, probably in October, from Nebraska-based Morris Press Cookbooks.

“People who watch her kept saying, ‘We need a cookbook,’ ” Raneri says.

The book will contain 222 recipes, as a reference to Pollock’s 1922 birthday. She will be 98 on Oct. 11.

Raneri, a visual artist and retired English teacher, will contribute seven short pieces of writing inspired by Pollock’s memories.

The selection process is simple: “We’ve been going through all the recipes,” Raneri says. “When she says, ‘Oh, that’s a good one,’ then it goes in.”

Further, a recipe has to be easy to follow, it has to yield a good amount and the ingredients can’t be expensive.

“I want to make it simple for people who haven’t cooked a lot,” Pollock says.

The other criteria hark back to the thrift that Pollock learned living through the Depression, Raneri says.

Pollock likes to look good for the camera, too, always wearing some nice jewelry while she cooks — a practice learned from her own mother.

“When she was growing up, her mom said everything had to be perfect before you started cooking,” Raneri says. “You had to put on a clean apron and a hairnet and wash your hands over and over again.”

The pair will donate $1 from the sale of each book to Helping Hearts and Healing Tails Animal Rescue in Stahlstown.

In the meantime, Pollock will keep on cooking on Facebook.

“Every Sunday, Lucy had the dinner guests she always wanted — from all over the world,” Raneri says in the book’s foreword.

Her lessons have covered everything from cinnamon rolls, cookies and cakes to noodles and gnocchi to sauces and canning. In November, she is planning to prepare viewers for the holidays by demonstrating pizzelles and nut horns.

“She’s still most comfortable with dough,” Raneri says.