Former Newtown resident Lorraine Hurley is a seasoned professional when it comes to all things food. She has traveled the world honing her craft, done television appearances, and worked as a food critic and consultant.

Now with her debut cookbook, The Hurley Kitchen Cookbook: Food For All Seasons, she adds author to her list of accolades.

Hurley’s passion for cooking started with her mother Anna Elizabeth Burkevage Wysokie’s influence. Anna was a restaurant chef in Pennsylvania for two decades and shared the art of cooking with her daughter in their kitchen.

When Hurley left home to attend college at Boston University, she majored in health education, and that path led her to dust off her culinary skills again.

“From there I went into a master’s program for education, and Boston University invited me to chair the first publication of their Boston University cookbook, which was called Cooking By Degrees,” she said.

Anyone who graduated from Boston University could contribute to the alumni cookbook with their recipes and by testing the recipes.

“That was my first big attempt at a cookbook, but I had a whole committee to work with, so I wasn’t alone on that one,” Hurley said. “It was a big success. It came out in hardback and paperback.”

Hurley later moved to Newtown, where she spent “42 happy years,” she said, before relocating to Colorado to be closer to family after the passing of her beloved husband, Michael Daniel Hurley, in 2015.

During her time in town, her family was very active in the community. All three of her children went through the Newtown school system, her late husband was a member of the Legislative Council, and she ran the Hurley Kitchen Cooking School out of their home on South Main Street.

The cooking school was established in 1986, and it gave her the opportunity to share her passion for cooking with a variety of people. She taught classes to families, hosted birthday parties, conducted “learning luncheons” at local restaurants, and even guest starred doing cooking presentations on the television series The Rabbit Hutch in Danbury.

“I loved every minute of it,” Hurley recalled.

One of her biggest joys was getting to teach children and young adults through her Children’s Cuisine of Newtown classes.

“My main purpose with the cooking school was to teach children about nutrition, because at Boston University my major was health education. I started out with nutrition classes and part of the nutrition classes was cooking, so that’s how it started out,” Hurley said.

She had “many, many students over the years” and fondly recalls a group of five young adults who took classes with her for five consecutive years before they entered high school. Today, they are in college and Hurley still keeps in contact with them, even having visited them before the pandemic.

Throughout the years, she, too, continued to be a student and pursued expanding her knowledge of cooking by continuing her education.

About eight years ago, she attended a gourmet cooking school in Nice, France, for a month. The school was immersive: Her whole day revolved around cooking and going to the market, from the moment she woke up to late in the evening.

“I learned a lot there. I really, really did,” Hurley said.

Among the lessons she learned in Nice was the task of rolling a pie crust. Hurley shared that knowledge with Newtown Bee readers in 2010 in the newspaper’s Little Lessons series.

After her experience overseas, she had the opportunity to go to Texas and attend the Central Market Cooking School in Austin.

“I spent time there, because you always have to keep learning,” Hurley said.

She returned to Newtown with new experiences that she then shared with her many students.

Creating The Cookbook

“I never thought of doing a cookbook, to be honest, but a very dear friend of mine [who’s] known me since high school was always telling me, ‘You’ve got to do a cookbook,’” Hurley admits.

For years her friend encouraged her, but she never had the time. It was not until the stay-at-home orders started in Colorado, in March 2020, that it became apparent she would have ample time on her hands.

“A few weeks later, my friend called and said, ‘Now is the time to write your cookbook.’… I took her up on it during a time of real isolation. I couldn’t go anywhere, couldn’t see anybody. I began to look through the boxes that I had brought with me from my cooking school, and I realized, I can do this,” Hurley said.

She also undertook the large task of researching different cookbook publishers across the United States.

“I found Morris Press Cookbooks in Nebraska and was very impressed with them. They were extremely cordial, polite, [and] down to earth,” Hurley said. “They had published nothing but cookbooks in the history of their company, and when they sent me their samples, I liked them.”

After finding a publisher, she worked day and night on the cookbook for about four months straight.

In addition to her compiling her own recipes for The Hurley Kitchen Cookbook: Food For All Seasons, she also enlisted the help of family, friends, and former students to contribute their recipes to the collection.

Flipping through the pages of the published work, readers will see countless recipes that have someone’s first name on them to give them credit.

“There was not a single member of my nieces, nephews, cousins, and in-laws who didn’t contribute to it,” Hurley explained. “There are recipes that they have used over the years and that we have perfected — including the bachelor nephews. My husband, Mike, loved to grill, and his recipes are in there, too.”

She is proud to feature recipes from some of her former cooking students, including Isabella’s Creamy Veggie Dip for a spring appetizer and Zach’s Family Chocolate Icebox Cake for graduations.

“They all contributed their favorite recipes to the cookbook,” Hurley said.

The process of making the cookbook also included testing all the recipes to make sure they were accurate and easy to follow.

When the time came to create the cover art, her granddaughter Grace did the honors and drew a whimsical tree — with a secret heart, as it was designed with love.

“My granddaughter, who is quite artistic, did the cover of the book. It was very, very nicely done by her,” Hurley said.

All of this was accomplished thanks to Hurley’s perseverance when she was isolated at home. She was able to connect with people from all over the country through technology.

“It was a pandemic project,” she said. “When it was published, you have no idea how happy I was. It was November 16 — I’ll never forget it — when my first books arrived. My three daughters were excited for it, too.”

A Sample Of The Recipes

There are more than 200 recipes in The Hurley Kitchen Cookbook: Food for All Seasons, thoughtfully divided by month and occasion.

“That’s the way I taught my cooking classes,” Hurley explained.

Following her cooking school agenda not only helped with organizing the recipes, but also allowed for most dishes to be suitable for beginners to create.

“The book is certainly for somebody who has never cooked. In there are recipes for basics… but at the same time, I have inserted quite a few gourmet recipes for someone who is advanced,” Hurley said.

Regardless of skill level, everyone can benefit from the informational guides Hurley included at the back of the book. These pages include a list of pantry basics, information about herbs and spices, tips for baking breads and desserts, advice for cooking and purchasing vegetables and fruit, styles of napkin folding, measurements and substitutions, cooking terms, and more.

“The company asked if I would like to insert them…[since] part of this is going to be a beginner’s cookbook and people do not know a lot of details. Some people never use spices because they don’t know what to do with them,” Hurley said.

When it comes to the cookbook recipes themselves, her favorite ones to make are Hurley’s Irish Black Bread and the Hurley Kitchen Irish Raisin Bread.

“When I was a student at Boston University, I had met a young lady who had just come here from Ireland and she brought with her her Irish recipes. For fun we got together at my house and started baking her Irish recipes. I don’t know where she went on in her career or her life, but she left me her Irish recipes and I tested them and perfected them,” Hurley said.

Now, every year for St Patrick’s Day she gets requests to make the Irish breads — and sometimes makes hundreds of loaves of them.

Another of her specialties that ended up in the cookbook is her famous banana nut bread.

“I make it to this day every time I get a new neighbor here. Everyone knows me here for that. I bake it and welcome them to the community,” she said.

While she is embracing living in Colorado, Hurley says that her “heart is still in Newtown,” and even paid homage to it by including Newtown’s Double Double Chocolate Cookies in the cookbook.

She created the recipe back when her youngest daughter was in the Newtown High School choir and would sing with her peers at the Ram Pasture Christmas Tree Lighting.

Since their home was only two houses down the from the pond, her daughter would bring the choir over to their house to warm up after they sang outside. Hurley would make them hot chocolate and cookies, and the tradition became their own mini celebration.

Future Endeavors

Hurley is beginning to do cooking demonstrations again in Colorado and is being featured on a local television station there in its “Recipe Of The Week” segment.

She is also continuing to do food consulting, and auctioning her book for charity events.

Hurley’s daughters are already encouraging her to start accumulating recipes for her next cookbook, but she says there are no immediate plans to dive into another one quite yet.

That does not mean that she is taking time off from cooking, however.

“I’m always trying new recipes,” Hurley said. “You can never stop.”

Those interested in purchasing a copy of The Hurley Kitchen Cookbook: Food for All Seasons can contact Hurley directly by e-mail at hurleykitchen@gmail.com. The price of the cookbook is $15 plus $ 3.16 for postage. Copies can be signed upon request.

Reporter Alissa Silber can be contacted at alissa@thebee.com.

August Recipes

Check out these recipes for August from The Hurley Kitchen Cookbook: Food For All Seasons.

Stuffed Zucchini

6 zucchini (four to five inches long)

¼ cup of diced onion or scallion

¼ cup of diced tomato

2 chopped mushrooms or 1 small can diced

¼ cup of breadcrumbs

½ teaspoon of dried basil

½ teaspoon of dried oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese, grated

Cut unpeel zucchini in half. Scoop out inside pulp and chop. In a saucepan on LOW heat, melt butter. Add pulp, onion, tomatoes, mushrooms, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper. Sauté until watery like consistency. Add breadcrumbs. Mix. Scoop zucchini shells. Add slight amount of melted butter on top with cheese. Put into glass bowl with inch of water on bottom. Bake 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Serves six.

Cauliflower Gratin – Texas Style

1 cup bread crumbs

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

3 tablespoons of butter

½ cup of flour

2 cups of whole milk

1 medium to large head of cauliflower cut into florets (same size)

Salt and pepper to taste

4 ounces of Gruyere cheese, grated

½ lemon, zested

1 teaspoon of fresh thyme, chopped

Combine bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Set aside. In a large skillet, melt butter on medium heat; add flour. Whisk for one minute. Slowly add milk, whisk continually. Add cauliflower. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a slow boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover. Cook gently until cauliflower softens, about five to eight minutes. Remove from stove. Stir in Gruyere cheese, zest, and thyme. Pour into a 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Cover with foil. Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove foil. Bake 20 more minutes until bread crumbs are golden brown. Serve immediately. Serves six to eight.