The Railroad and the Catalogue
From the late 19th century till well into the 20th Montgomery Ward and Sears supplied Americans on the farm and in small towns with all the tools for self-reliance but nobody was fooling themselves with some idea that they didn’t…
Pipes and feathers; Native American trade items
In truth long before Columbus arrived in the New World Native American cultures traded over long distances for interesting and innovative products not available locally; the red soapstone (Catlinite) for sacred tobacco pipes is one example, decorative bird feathers from…
Self–reliance versus Self-sufficiency: An ongoing series of meditations
None of us are self-sufficient. We all need somebody! Despite the often nostalgic retro-interpretations (our national idealization of Little House on the Prairie comes to mind!) Americans weren’t self-sufficient in the Colonial past, the Revolutionary Era nor the long 19th…
Dotty the Pig is getting bigger every day
She nibbles out of our hands, begs for an ear scratch, and eats, eats, eats!!
All the rainy day cooking
Here is my yesterday’s production! Six quarts of beans and ham. Four dozen cabbage rolls, and a five pound bowl of hummus.
Cooking Ahead on a Wet Spring Day
What does a food obsessed woman who lives out in the country do on a wet, chilly, rainy, spring weekend day? Why she cooks, of course! It’s 10-ish o’clock in the morning and I have three make ahead meal…