Those in the Tri-Village area know Tracy Liberatore as president of the Grandview Heights/Marble Cliff Historical Society. But Liberatore also has a sweeter side; she’s an award-winning baker.
In her kitchen – surrounded by half-finished cabinets that were fashioned by her husband, Jack – Liberatore whips up delicious creations, including a variety of pies and other baked goods, in the Wolf range her father bought her. When her father told her to pick out a good stove that she’d had her eye on, Liberatore balked.
“I said, ‘Do you know how much those things cost?’” she recounts. But her dad fired back that she should choose one before he changed his mind.
On this particular evening, she’s whipping up a batch of cinnamon rolls for the
Grandview Band Parents Association’s annual Cake Walk.
“(Cake) is one thing I do not do well,” Liberatore jokes. “I bake them for my kids’ birthdays, but Jack would have to tuck-point them.”
Liberatore learned to bake pies at age 9 in her grandmother Rose’s kitchen in Athens, Ohio, but the family’s love of the round, sweet treats goes back at least one more generation.
“My great-grandmother Gigi is really the one who really started the baking. She baked nine pies every Monday,” Liberatore says. “She ate them for breakfast. It sounds kooky, but it’s not. It’s fruit and pastry.”
Soon, Liberatore’s mother, Nancy Rutherford Penn, had given her the task of making dessert for each Sunday dinner at their home in Bexley.
“We’d be working side by side in the kitchen, which was very unusual because my mother didn’t like anybody being in the kitchen with her. “
Liberatore attended West Virginia Wesleyan University for a year, studying secretarial science, before transferring to Ohio University, where her grandfather was on the board of trustees. There she earned a bachelor’s degree in English and fine arts.
She and Jack met in the early 1980s at a pub where his brother’s band was playing. Just a few chance meetings later and the two were inseparable.
“We just clicked,” Liberatore says.
They were married within a year and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary. They moved to Grandview 27 years ago and have two children, Sam and Emma Rose, who both attended Grandview schools. Sam is 25 and Emma Rose is 22.
Over the years, Liberatore held a number of jobs, including one at a preschool – “so I could bring my kids along,” she says – and another as a substitute teacher at Grandview Heights City Schools.Currently, Liberatre works in the billing department at Columbus-based costume design and rental company Costume Specialists.
It was Penn who pushed Liberatore to put her baking skills to the test in competitions, encouraging her to enter a historic peach pie contest at the Ohio Historical Society.
“You had to do research and make it like they would have made it. Sugar was a very scarce commodity. I had to use arrowroot or something as thickener,” Liberatore says.
She didn’t win first place, but she did win second and a double-decker pie basket. After that she went on to compete at the Ohio State Fair, where she earned her first first-place ribbon. Amping up her fruit pies with nuts and liquors helped earn her several more awards at the State Fair, including the Pillsbury competition for both apple and peach pies.
Liberatore has also won awards for cheddar cheese pastries stuffed with prosciutto and hot pepper jelly and for a chicken dish stuffed with spinach; covered with a sauce made from whipping cream, red wine and swiss cheese; and topped with crunchy shallots and bacon crumbles. She’s even developed a reputation among her friends and neighbors.
“My neighbors all knew they could come over here and get (test pies) because I’d have all these pies and we’re not going to eat them all,” Liberatore says.
She doesn’t enter many contests nowadays, but does bake frequently for family and friends.
“(Competing) was fun, but it’s a lot of work,” she says. “Now I just bake stuff for people. For Thanksgiving, people order pies from me. One person ordered this orange roll. It’s kind of like a coffee cake, but they’re individual rolls ... (made with) sour cream and orange juice, yummy and buttery.”
Her involvement in the Grandview Heights/Marble Cliff Historical Society also stemmed from her family background; Penn was a member of the Ohio Village Volunteers’ Association. A neighbor approached Liberatore about joining the local historical society and she was soon hooked, working first as a board member and now as society president.
Liberatore was instrumental in getting the Bank Block Building on Grandview Avenue onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. Jack, a woodworker who built the stage at Grandview Heights High School, even helped, crawling around in the basement to get all the necessary information for the application.
Lisa Aurand is editor of Tri-Village Magazine. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.
