To study the work of other bakers, she would examine, feel, and smell a piece of pastry and could then make her own version of it without tasting.

[1][2] She believed that outcomes in baking depend on the quality of ingredients, and she urged her cookbook readers to use the finest and freshest.

The family, including her younger sibs Ben and Dorothy, emigrated from Bialystock and arrived at Ellis Island in 1904.

Sarah had a fourth child, Carl, a few months later, and overwhelmed, placed all four children in a Jewish orphanage.

[4] At a Chicago cooking school, she met Vienna-born Nanny Wolfe, who taught her Viennese-style baking.

She submitted a bundt kuchen to a local fair and won first prize, a dining room table and chairs.

[9] She retired to her small apartment where she cooked continually, adapting her restaurant size recipes to home versions.

In 1978, Random House published her second cookbook Grandma Rose's Book of Sinfully Delicious Snacks, Nibbles, Noshes & Other Delights.

[11] In his column fellow Portlander James Beard wrote: "For anyone interested in cooking, the book is a wonderful investment.