REXBURG— Raymonda Furness is dedicated to learning about delicious recipes and telling everyone about them.
“I featured a cook in the area and we published some of their recipes, and I told a little story about their families or whatever they were doing— If they were in some kind of business— (it was) just kind of a human interest thing for the local people,” Raymonda says.
Raymonda was the food editor for 44 years for Rexburg's Upper Valley Standard Journal before retiring in January 2024. Many in east Idaho looked forward to the recipe of the week and the family it was associated with in her weekly publication entitled “Food Stuff.”
Before becoming a food columnist, she was inspired by the work of another food columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune decades ago. She says a former co-worker introduced her to the column, and they would read it weekly when she was working in the medical field for the University of Utah Health.
“I was a secretary at that time… and there was about 40 secretaries that worked in our division, and everyday we went on break and especially on Thursdays, we got so excited because the food column came out on Thursday in the Salt Lake Tribune,” Raymonda says.
In 1980 Raymonda began her work after being hired by Roger Porter to write for the Standard Journal. Her articles hit newsstands all over the valley.
“It went out in the Ashton Herald, the Fremont Chronicle, and the Rexburg Standard Journal” Raymonda says.
This believer of sugar, spice, and all things tasting nice says she loved what she did, and especially enjoyed meeting the homegrown chefs behind the scenes.
“I would get suggestions from people and it didn’t always have to be somebody that was a ‘chef-type’ person, or somebody that was always into the food part of their lives… I love to do the common everyday cook,” Raymonda says.
Raymonda says in all her decades of food features she’s noticed a few recipes that seemed to circulate, but all with different names – essentially they were the Latter-day Saint favorite Funeral Potatoes, the Texas Sheet Cake, and different styles of soups and breads.
“Funeral Potatoes—it had so many names, it was like, ‘Cheesy Potatoes,’ sometimes it was made with regular potatoes, sometimes it was made with hashbrowns,” Raymonda says. “It’s quite interesting because I have some old cookbooks of when I was in high school in the 50s and lots of these recipes we get and we think they’re brand new, I would go back to those recipe books and those recipes would be in those cookbooks, maybe by a different name.”
Being a homegrown chef herself, Raymonda says her family can’t live without homemade noodles.
“You can buy noodles at the store, but it is so easy to beat up a couple of eggs and add flour to it, and have homemade noodles—my children, I tried to buy noodles once and they wouldn’t eat it,” Raymonda says.
Although Raymonda is retired she encourages everyone to take up a spatula and look for simple recipes to try with those you love.
“My philosophy with a recipe is, ‘It is not the recipe, it is the cook,’” Raymonda says.