[♪♪♪] -Hey, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, all the ships at sea.

Welcome to Cookin' Cheap .

-Yeah, you and Walter Winchell.

-Yeah, so I got a little something extra here today I want to show you.

It's my handy-dandy, uh... this is the food police.

Come out with your hams in the air.

-[Laban laughs] -[laughs] It's also got some other things.

You know, now if, if Miss, the very lovely Miss Doris gets out of hand, I have an alarm.

-[alarm blares] -That's a Doris alarm.

-Yes.

-But anyway.

Well, I'll just keep this on standby, just in case-- -I was afraid of that.

-I need it.

[laughs] -To project your already booming voice.

-Yes, that's true.

-Well, let's get the witch in here and see what we're doing today.

And here she comes.

Boink.

She had kind of a rough takeoff there.

-I think it's your turn to read this, the witch letter.

-Well.

-Did you hear a whistle when she went through?

-Yes, I did.

She whistles at us.

Well, let's see.

"Dear gentlemen, I live in Canada where we watch your show on satellite.

I have never been in the southern United States, and I must admit that many of your recipes are rather quaint.

-LARRY: Hmm!

-Hmm.

I am writing to ask about a dessert you once mentioned on the show, a cobbler.

Is it a cake shaped like one of the paving bricks on old streets or perhaps a nail of the same name?

Please show us--" -Dumb letter.

-"who are not up on your southern lingo.

Truly yours, Bertha Shoemaker, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan."

-Oh, my heavens.

Moose Jaw.

-Moose Jaw.

-We haven't gotten a letter on Moose Jaw since, uh, I don't remember.

-Hector was a pup.

-Well, yeah.

As a matter of fact, it's funny that, uh, she would ask.

It was, it was a she, wasn't it?

I can't remember.

-Bertha, I guess it was.

-I'm doing somethin' called Apple Macaroon sent in by the lovely Sandy Morris of Bear, Delaware.

-Bear, Delaware.

-Bear, Delaware.

-And I'm doing a recipe from Ava Presley of Norton, Virginia.

-Oh, I love it.

-Uh-huh.

-Great name.

-And, uh, Ava, I didn't realize till I was making this recipe a little while ago that we probably did this 12 or 15 years ago on this show-- -LARRY: Oh, a rerun.

-as one of the secret recipes from the Bly family.

-That's right.

And the lovely Doris will be doing Holiday Apple Cobbler.

-Oh, so-- -She'll be in shortly.

-Well, we got cobblers today.

Do you want to start?

-Now leaving from gate number seven to Danville, Virginia.

[giggles] -Oh, he is such a mess when he just has to play.

-I got to do a couple of quick things.

Well, wait till my Billy Bob teeth arrive.

-Oh, no.

-I've just ordered some Billy Bob teeth.

They're gonna kill you, folks, they're wonderful.

But they're a little pricey.

You know, those gag gift catalogs charge too much for stuff.

-Well, of course they do.

-First thing-- this thing calls for an incredible amount of stuff and it-- it makes a huge cobbler.

First thing I got to do real quick and then I'll let you get on your way is two and a third or a half, I can't remember-- third, I think it is-- uh, sticks of margarine or butter.

And we're gonna go with a little combination of both today.

Although-- -It looks to me like you got two and two-thirds cup in there.

LARRY: Well, it's-- it's something like that.

LABAN: Well, it'll be a little extra greasy.

-It's just a little extra.

And besides-- now, Miss Doris has already laid into me, laid me out thoroughly before we went on the air.

She says this is terrible stuff to use in baking, it should only be used as a spread.

Huh.

Well, next thing I got to do is take some Granny Smiths or some kind of apple that's close to it and do about 13 of 'em, which is a big old bag about this big, big lumpy bag about this big, and because it takes so many, I have already done a goodly number of them already.

And all you do is you cut 'em into the same size of snits that you use in a pie.

And that's about that big.

-LABAN: Snits?

-Uh-huh, that's a snit, an apple, an apple snit.

-LABAN: I have never heard that.

-That's what they called them where I came from, and you know I'm from Winchester, near Winchester, which is the Eastern Apple capital of the world.

And so, I know a little bit about apples.

[chuckles] But not much.

I know, for instance, that this is the peeling that I'm taking off right now.

And you, essentially, you quarter them and take out the little thing in the middle, that little ugly thing there in the middle.

So, that's what I'm gonna do.

I'm heatin' my margarine and I'm snittin' my apples.

LABAN: I'll swear, I think this boy sometimes, that pumpkin head of his was cloned from an apple tree.

Snit.

Now, I have lived here in the Roanoke Valley where we have a number of fine orchards and in all of my life, which is longer than yours-- -LARRY: Considerably.

-um, I have never heard that word snit used in relationship to an apple.

I have heard it many times in [indistinct], in its, uh, regular use.

-Like he had a terrible snit and hit her upside the head.

-Well, anyway.

-Well, I'll tell you, I'll be happy to look it up for you, but it's one of those terms I grew up with-- an apple snit.

If anybody out there has ever heard of it, let us know.

-Yes, we'd love to know that.

All right, I've got a cup of flour, self-rising variety.

Make sure you're using the self-rising.

Cup of flour, and a cup of sugar.

And in the oven, I have a eight by eight pan-- you can use whatever you want-- uh, with a stick of margarine in it, melting.

Now I've got the flour.

-LARRY: [laughs] [booming noise] -Well, there.

Gettin' so rough there.

And you want to mix the flour and sugar together.

LARRY: No one will miss that one apple I just threw away.

[laughs] -LABAN: Was it bad?

LARRY: No.

Uh, I-- I had chopped it all up into pieces and forgot to, uh, to take the peel off of it.

So, anyway.

That's okay.

-I guess a snake is going to come out here in a few minutes and tell you to take a bite of that.

-Now you know there used to be a-- aren't you the one that told me that it used to be a contest, see who could get the longest peel-- -LABAN: Yeah, yeah.

-and all that?

Okay.

I was just... And what did you win if you had the longest peel?

-Oh, probably a good grade from your instructor because they did it mostly in those schools.

LARRY: In schools?

Oh, okay.

-Well, anyway, I've got my flour, and now I've got to add to this a cup o' milk.

So let me get that out of the refrigerator.

-Well, I am now peeling the last of my apples.

-Where is--?

Oh, there it is.

-What, where's the refrigerator?

-It's over here.

-Oh, he's lost the refrigerator, ladies and gentlemen; he's forgotten where the refrigerator is.

-No, no, I forgot where I put [indistinct].

Here it is.

And, uh, this milk is cheap.

-I just want everybody to know that Laban and Larry just took a rare trip together-- we haven't done that in years-- to Washington, DC.

And after two days, we're still being lovely.

-LABAN: Speaking to one another.

-Speaking to one another.

In fact, we had a-- a wonderful time, didn't we?

-Yes, we did.

-Okay, now here's the next thing I got to do-- take a big old pan and I mean a big, a big old pan.

And, uh, that thing is bubbling around; almost put my eye out.

It says a 17 and a quarter by 11 and a half two-inch pan and that's prett' near what you got right here.

And you can either take butter and butter it up, I'm going to take a little leftover Pamela.

[laughs] Pam, some kind of, you can use any brand you want to, of course.

Oh.

Anyway.

-LABAN: I wish you would.

-And, and oil it or grease it.

And then the next thing you do is take all these apples and just put them down in there just as you would a pan, I mean a pie.

And that's it for right now.

Laban, we're done.

-Well, that looks real good.

All right, now to my cup of sugar, cup of flour, I add a cup of milk.

So, this recipe is real easy to remember.

Let me move this out of the way so you can see what I'm doing.

And you mix this together into a smooth batter.

And of course-- -LARRY: Smooth batter.

LABAN: --if Doris had been on top of things, I would have had a whisk to use to make this.

DORIS: It's right here.

-Huh?

Larry is using it.

-Well, I am using the whisk.

But there you go.

-No, that's all right, I can use a spoon.

-LARRY: No, I insist.

-LABAN: No, no, no, I'm gonna use a spoon.

-LARRY: I insist.

-I said I'm using the spoon!

-DORIS: Well, rinse it off.

-Well, so much for that two days in Washington, DC.

-[Larry laughs] -Well, you know, we had a great time except that one period on Friday night where we were in the cab and the cab driver got lost.

-Ha!

It was a cab nightmare, ladies and gentlemen.

We knew where our parking lot was, but he didn't.

-We could see it, but we couldn't get to it.

It was like Abraham looking over-- at the Promised Land.

-We couldn't get there.

Only in Washington, DC, can you say, "It's over across I-66 over there.

See that one over there?

Well, that's it," and he couldn't get to it.

For 45 minutes.

-We drove around, and the meter was running.

LARRY: The whole time.

Forty-seven dollars he cost us.

-People of Washington, learn your streets.

Just, huh, it was-- it was right much of a scream.

-Now listen, I need to do a couple of things when you get a little chance there.

-All right, go ahead.

Go ahead.

-This recipe goes on so long, I'm afraid if I don't hustle along, I'm not gonna get it done.

Take five eggs, break them and beat them all up.

So that's what we're gonna do right now.

Five eggs.

Now that [indistinct] is one-- oh!

Pfft!

-LABAN: Oh, what a lovely mess.

-[Larry hums] -[Doris giggling] -[Larry sighs deeply] Excuse me.

Doris, I'm glad you're enjoying this so much.

Listen to her.

She's just fairly cackling over there.

I think that you laid these eggs.

[loud sizzling] Ooh.

Sounds very hot, Mister Johnson.

-It is.

-Now, take these eggs and-- and beat them up.

-LABAN: Take these eggs and-- BOTH: --beat them.

-[laughter] LABAN: Sounds like a old Johnny Paycheck song.

LARRY: Beat the eggs up.

So anyway.

All right, that's all I do for right now, Laban.

What'd you just do?

-LABAN: Oh, all right.

Now, here's my little aluminum pan and I brought an aluminum pan because I know very well that as soon as this show is over, the crew is gonna descend upon these and I didn't want to have one of my nice fine dishes.

Doris gave me a lovely crystal one for Christmas, uh, like this.

But I didn't want to bring it because I knew they would break it with their big ugly fangs and their paws grabbin' at 'em and everything.

So anyway, here is your stick of margarine melted in the pan.

You just warm up the oven, because it's got to bake at 350 degrees, put your pan in there, let it melt, and then you're going to add to it this mixture out of the bowl with the cup of sugar, cup of flour and a cup of, cup of milk.

All right, there we go.

All right, that's all it is.

Now we got a can of peaches.

You remember Peaches?

She was a wonderful woman.

-Used to twirl those things.

Oh, well, yeah.

[stammers] That's, that's when she, yeah, you know.

-Peaches was a great lady, in many respects.

All right, now, without dumping, without draining them, you pour the peaches right on in there.

And then you kind of arrange them around a little bit.

-[Larry laughs] -And then you put it in the-- LARRY: [laughs] Well, now, say the last of it.

-You put it in the oven and bake it for a half an hour.

And that's all you do.

-LARRY: And that's it?

-That's it.

I'm finished.

-Why don't you do your, why don't you do your recipe.

-All right.

The recipe is one cup of sugar, one cup of flour, one cup of milk, one stick of margarine, and a large can of peaches.

And that's it.

LARRY: It's the old one-one-one-one-one recipe.

-Oh, while we're goofing around-- LARRY: Hang on, I gotta do something here.

I got a lot to do.

Next thing we got to do is we got to make a mixture of a cup of sugar, some flour, and some cinnamon.

So the next thing we do is eight, uh, tablespoons-- one... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight.

This makes an awful lot of stuff.

That wasn't what I did yesterday.

And a cup of cinnamon sugar, which I've already pre-mixed.

I have this great big thing of cinnamon.

And I just mixed it up with a nice thing of-- wasn't that what it says?

-DORIS: [indistinct].

LARRY: Cinnamon to taste.

Oh, well, it's already a mess.

-LABAN: What has he done now?

-LARRY: Put that in there.

Mix it all up.

And now, let's go to the Cook Sisters while I find myself.

I'm totally lost, I can't figure out what I'm doing.

Let's go to the Cook Sisters.

Cook Sisters coming momentarily.

LABAN: All right.

Here they come, trippingly down the hall with their canes, their rockers and their assorted attendants.

-Hey, Sister?

-Yeah?

-Uh, looks like you need to wash your hands.

You know, you should wash your hands every time you handle raw meat.

-Oh, right.

-You should.

The germs just hate it when you do that, and it just washes them right down the drain.

-Oh no.

Now we'll get the germ people on us.

-Oh, I know, the germ fanatics are everywhere.

-They are.

I am Sister Cook.

-I'm Sister Cook.

BOTH: And we're the Cook Sisters.

-I did it right, you-- oh, hey.

Doris and I are having just a titch of a little argument there.

Okay, now you take that flour and cinnamon and sugar and the next thing you do is-- LABAN: If you want to see the real recipe, folks, it'll be in the cookbook.

[laughs] LARRY: You take that and put it over top of there, just like that, all pre-mixed and everything like that.

Okay?

And if you want just a little bit of extra cinnamon, just do that.

Okay?

There you go with that.

Now, the next thing we do is we take the five eggs.

-That have been lightly beaten.

-Lightly beaten.

Put that there.

-LABAN: Including the one that was dropped on the floor.

-It was not dropped on the floor, Mister Johnson.

And the sticks of margarine; put that in there.

[sighs] And what else goes in there?

Five eggs beaten... two and a half cups of flour goes in there.

All right, two and a half cups of flour.

I told you this took a while but that's all right, we'll get there.

One... two... and one half goes in there.

And a little bit of salt.

Do you have some salt over there?

Do we have some salt?

Do we have--?

May I have your attention, please?

Is there any salt on the set?

Doris, is there any--?

Oh, she's getting it.

Okay, thank you very much.

Little bit of salt goes on here at this time.

Try and keep up with me, Jim.

And that goes there.

Next, we have-- that's it.

Okay, now we're going to mix this up, and while we mix this up, I'm going to give you my recipe.

Okay, here we go.

And it calls for 12 large apples, Granny Smiths are preferred, a cup of sugar, eight tablespoons of flour, cinnamon to taste, that's the initial stuff that goes in there.

-[Laban laughing] -LARRY: Stop it.

The topping is two and a third stick of butter or margarine, I'm in big trouble.

Two and a half cups of sugar, five eggs beaten, two and a half cups of flour, a half teaspoon of salt, which I just added, and then a little more cinnamon sugar which we will pile on top.

And that's the recipe.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, showing that I'm ambidextrous, [laughs] we're going to bring in the very lovely Doris Ford.

I need to have the official-- I need to reset this for the official Doris alarm.

-[alarm blares] -All right.

How you doing, Doris?

-DORIS: I'm doing just fine.

-I almost killed that for you today too, didn't I?

I accidentally put her, her stuff on broil.

DORIS: That's okay.

It needed to be nice and brown.

-Well, it certainly is.

-DORIS: Okay, I had to do... um, find my spot now... Holiday Apple Cobbler, and it was sent in by Pamela Mayor, age 15, from Gordonsville, Virginia.

And you take one cup of sugar, a half to three-fourth teaspoons of ground-- how do you say that, cardamin?

-LABAN: Cardamom.

-And boy, that is expensive.

So, it says if desired, unless you have it at home, I'm, I think maybe I'd leave it out, or you can put maybe a little cinnamon or something in its place.

-LABAN: Or mace.

DORIS: Mace in its place.

One tablespoon of cornstarch.

LABAN: Now Doris, you're a poet and don't know it.

DORIS: I don't even know what I said.

Five cups of... -LABAN: Mace in its place.

-[alarm blares] -LARRY: Oops.

Excuse me.

-LABAN: Oh!

Oh.

-DORIS: [laughing] Five cups of sliced, cored apples-- LABAN: Doris is beginning to cry, folks.

LARRY: She's amazing.

DORIS: --and one cup of cranberries.

And if you want to make this other, now this is, uh, the end of February here and there ain't no such animals as cranberries but luckily, I freeze them.

-[loud panting] -Sounds like I got a dirty old man here breathing in my ear.

[laughs] LARRY: Huh.

Go along, Doris, I have things to do.

-LABAN: Just do it.

DORIS: And some Hungry Jack biscuits, and you take-- and you take this, and you're cooking it on the stove.

You cook your, uh, your cranberries, apples, your-- your sugar and wait a minute, on top of the stove till they're almost done.

Put them in the oven, put the biscuits on top with some sugar, the rest of the sugar on it and bake it and I think it's gonna turn out pretty good now that you've heated it up real good.

And underneath here if I can get it out... LARRY: Now you're going to tell us everything that's in it?

DORIS: I tried.

I'll just move that over.

See, and this is, this is your filling.

-LABAN: Ooh, that looks good.

-DORIS: And it looks pretty.

It's cran-- the cranberry and the apple, it all goes together so it would be good for the holidays or any time.

Like I say, I froze the cranberries, so luckily we had some for today.

LABAN: Good.

DORIS: Because there's none around.

Okay, you all done?

[laughing] -Got anything else you want to say?

-DORIS: Not really.

-[laughter] -Well, so much for her.

Okay, now you can see that when you make this... mess, that, uh, that it makes a very, very thick batter, a very thick batter.

And so now what you do, and you-- actually, if it gets-- sometimes it can get even thicker than that, and it says just sort of drop it in drops, although I have a tendency to make it a little bit thinner than they do.

And the next thing you do now is you just distribute this batter over top of the apples with that cinnamon sugar on it, and try and sort of smooth it out as best you can.

It's gonna distribute underneath the, uh, 350 degrees or whatever, for about an hour and 15 minutes, it has to go.

And I tell you what - this is, it's a long recipe, but I will tell you it is, it appears to be a simply stunningly delicious recipe.

So, there you see that.

Now also what you do is at this point, take just a little more of the cinnamon sugar or just the cinnamon itself and just kind of sprinkle it over the top, however much you'd like, just enough to make it real pretty.

Just-- LABAN: That would make a nice glaze to-- -LARRY: And there you go.

-LABAN: You know what, the lovely Doris.

-LARRY: Yes.

-Who never makes a mistake, never.

-LARRY: Uh-oh!

-She left the cream out.

And she-- you pour cream over it after you take it out of the oven.

-LARRY: Uh-oh.

Doris alarm.

-[alarm blares] -DORIS: When you're serving it.

-Yeah.

When you're serving it.

-LARRY: Is that so?

-So, I'm-- I'm taking care of that right now.

LARRY: Well, I want to show them what this looks like when it comes out of the oven.

-Okay.

-This is a very, very pretty recipe.

-LABAN: Ooh, it is.

-And look at that, you could feed the whole neighborhood on that.

LABAN: Well, I'm glad we're not live right this very second because your neighborhood would show up.

You're the only person I know that would have two... things that size.

LARRY: I know, that is true.

And I have-- I have yet another one.

Now this one's Doris', the one I used today, uh, but this one is mine and I also have another one at-- at least that large at home.

-LABAN: Well, it's lovely.

LARRY: Do we have a serving spoon for this?

-LABAN: Oh, we can use this.

-All righty.

LABAN: Oh, here.

Doris has one.

-Doris is right on the spot here, ladies and gentlemen.

Huh, let's go to those Cook Sisters.

Oh, we've done that.

-LABAN: Oh, we've done.

-Oh, okay.

I'm so confused.

-LABAN: Oh!

-[hums] Thank you, Laban.

LABAN: Well, you're welcome to [indistinct] yet to my place.

-Well, look at this beautiful floral tribute.

Now what, are these real?

Of course they are.

Look at this.

What are those?

-DORIS: Those are real.

-I've got hung up on my mic cord.

-What are they?

Zinnias, are they?

DORIS: [indistinct].

-No, no, no.

They are Transvaal daisies.

-They are what?

-That's correct.

They are Transvaal, from South Africa, daisies.

-LARRY: Transvaal?

How do you know stuff like this, Mister Johnson?

-Well, like I've said many times, I just wish I could, uh, rearrange my hard disk so I didn't know all the stuff I do.

-Let me get you some of Doris'.

-I've already got it.

It's in the bowl, already served.

-That's-- oh!

Well, let me get you some more.

-You try to help him and he just-- LARRY: Well, that's the greatest of plenty.

Which one should I try first?

It's so exciting.

I just can't tell.

Uh, I'll try...

I'll try yours.

-I'll try yours.

-Well, I know what yours tastes like because this is the same recipe I make all the time at home.

Mmm.

-DORIS: [indistinct].

LABAN: We've already used it.

Doris is standing there... -Doris is prompting us.

Besides, she thinks we don't know how to use a pitcher.

LABAN: ...to use the, uh, cream on hers.

-Well, I'm gonna see what-- Let me see what Doris' is like here.

You know what?

It tastes like a big old glob of cherry with a big old Hungry Jack biscuit next to it.

No, it's good.

It really is delicious.

-Yep.

It's the best biscuit I've ever had out of a can.

-And you know, I think that by my putting it under the broiler accidentally for five minutes helped it a great deal.

-Well, it put that hard glaze on to it.

-LARRY: A nice glaze.

-Mmm.

LARRY: Well, let me try mine.

What do you think of mine, Mister Johnson?

-Well, as I previously said, I thought it was real good.

-You know, I think-- -You are distracted today.

-I have been totally distracted by the day.

Mmm.

This is a great recipe.

You know, it's worth all the trouble I had to go through to do it.

And I did do it right, by the way.

You all scoffed at me and made fun of me and light of me but I think I've come off with it.

-Well, if we don't, who will?

Half the civilized world.

All right.

Oh, it is good.

-Well, I'm telling you, and that's my own homemade cinnamon.

You too can make cinnamon at home.

You know what you do?

Just mix it with a little sugar, cinnamon and sugar.

Mix it up.

However strong you'd like for it to be, and that's cinnamon sugar.

You don't even have to go out and buy it or anything.

-And I think this recipe would be fun using those new peaches that are spiced.

You know, you can get spiced peaches and raspberry-flavored peaches.

-Look how pretty, though.

That is such a-- you know, you've just done that perfectly.

DORIS: Okay, guys, stop.

[indistinct].

-[chuckles] Come over here, Doris.

Come over here with your thing here.

Come here.

Over here.

Doris is now playing-- no, no, no, you were doing a great-- get it back up and play with it some more.

Come on out here.

Come on.

Doris was yelling at us on speakerphone.

What'd you have-- how much time do we have, Doris?

MAN: Thirty seconds.

-Thirty seconds.

-DORIS: Thirty seconds.

-I know that, Doris.

How much time do we have, Doris?

-DORIS: Wait a minute.

We have 15 more seconds.

-[laughter] -Oh, that... Doris?

Well, what she does to Harold at home, I know.

I just know it.

-[indistinct].

Bye.

-Bye.

[music fades out]