Good Cooking
For Concetta, it was love at first recipe ... French toast Story and photos By David Moore
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oncetta Kreps has no inkling where she first tasted French toast, but it was probably back in the first or second grade. She loved it and, by golly, wanted to make some. Since her grandmother was not there at the time, Concetta turned to the number two cook in her life, her mother. “She told me to get a piece of paper.” Along with lined school paper, Concetta grabbed a red marker. “I was sitting at the table and she was telling me how to make it. I was writing it as fast I could. “I made it right then and there,” Concetta continues. “I knew I had just done something wonderful. If my family ever wanted French toast, I would make it for them.” Her first cooking achievement was soon followed by making popovers. Similar to Yorkshire pudding, a popular English side dish for prime rib roast, Concetta found them easy to make. She also found a lifelong calling. “I started cooking and never stopped,” she laughs. “I still cook a lot for friends and consider it fun. “I think the reason I was interested in cooking is that my grandmother used to entice me to cook with her when I was a kid. It was always fun when I cooked with her – always fun.”
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ancy and Louis Lovoy, Concetta’s parents, hailed from Birmingham where her mother’s family was long in the food business, whether it was owning convenience stores or wholesaling grocery companies. When Louis and Nancy moved to
Cooking and food have played a big part over the years in the family of Concetta Kreps. She continues to find joy in cooking for other people. Cullman, they operated Central Grocery, a wholesale operation, along with a tobacco franchise. “Everything in my early life has always revolved around the grocery business,” Concetta says. “If you tried to cook something and messed it up, nobody cared. There were another 34 cases of ingredients sitting there.” They baked cookies by the laundry basket full, especially at Christmas. “If we brought friends home for dinner,” she says, “it was never like, ‘How are we going to feed them?’ It was like, ‘Just get over here and help us cook!’” The other side of her family in Birmingham was also long involved in the food industry, and her namesake,
Grandmother Concetta Simonetti, was a great cook. Concetta learned from her mom and grandmother, but found cooking more enjoyable with her grandmother; it was her favorite activity to share with her granddaughter. “She was an absolutely, very talented cook,” Concetta says. “She was selftaught and cooking was her favorite thing to do besides spending time with her grandchildren. She never used a recipe. Once she read something, she memorized it and never looked at it again.” Her mother, however, made the best coconut cream pie, Concetta adds. Her late husband, Gerry Kreps, said he’d never tasted one to beat it.
AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020
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