Of the U.S.A

New Women in the Old West: From Settlers to Suffragists, an Untold American

BY KATHY A. MEGYERI

Want fascinating summaries of unsung women who affected the course of U.S. history and impacted each of our lives? Let me share just one of the book’s examples that will give readers a flavor of this powerful portrait of Western women: “In May 1845, a young married couple left St. Joseph, Missouri, to migrate to the Oregon Territory where they hoped to find a better, more prosperous life. After a four-month honeymoon in a wagon train across prairies, plains and mountains, they planned to claim free land as part of America’s Manifest Destiny and the Homestead Act. Sarah Jane Cummings recorded her odyssey in which she admitted that she was taking a ‘wild and inconsiderate step’ into the unknown. Her covered wagon was ten feet long and 3 ½ feet wide and crammed with over a ton of goods— tools, bacon in barrels of bran, the family Bible, ‘dictionary, arithmetic, grammar, charts and maps, and also our diplomas of graduation.’ Over ruts and rivers, Image from Amazon they negotiated the Oregon Trail, really a narrow path used by Indians and fur trappers. Femininity forgotten, the women washed clothes in muddy rivers, gathered buffalo dung for fuel and cooked meals over a campfire. Women drove the horses, unloaded the wagons, scouted the terrain and hunted for wildlife. Cummings referred to her female comrades as other ‘dear good women’ compared to writing of ‘my husband, Mr. Walden.’ It’s ironic that with their supposed physiological and mental frailty, they prevailed. Physically they grew strong, they ate buffalo meat and their health improved in the sunnier, western climate...” Winifred Gallagher, the author, has written for many publications and authored the books “House Thinking,” “Just the Way You Are,” and “How the Post Office Created America.” Commuting between her homes in upstate New York and in Wyoming, she developed an appreciation for the enormity of this nation and how rural so much of it is. Gallagher says she’s been impressed by the strong versatile women in the Old West who built homes and communities from scratch and led the massive human rights revolution that enfranchised half the nation. By the time the 19th Amendment was finally ratified in 1920, most Western women had already voted for years and sometimes even decades before women back East. What a motivating read to fully appreciate our nation’s early female heroes and through anecdotal vignettes, Gallagher demonstrates that they forever redefined the American woman.

QUARANTINE KITCHEN KING

I’ve always enjoyed cooking. Especially when I make up a meal as I’m cooking it. I call this “Jazz Cooking.” This is great except when someone requests a particularly good meal, and I don’t remember how I made it, which may be in part because I enjoy cooking with wine. Drinking it rather than using it as an ingredient, perhaps it’s a salute to Graham Kerr, “The Galloping Gourmet.”

One meal I do remember I call “Michael Wright’s Skillet Delight.” I created it decades ago during a camping trip where I also learned that a used “Jiffy Pop” skillet does not work well for frying eggs. “Michael Wright’s Skillet Delight” is made with bacon grease, a can of corned beef and a tube of biscuit dough.

The Joy of My Life refuses to eat anything made with bacon grease. My argument that Henry David Thorough used it at Walden Pond carries no weight whatsoever. The best “how-to” cooking shows are not to be found on The Cooking Channel nor The Food Network. The exception of course being Giada De Laurentiis’ and Nigella Lawson’s shows. They, of course, make the best eye candy.

No! The best TV source to learn cooking is on PBS. Joy and I both become off-andon addicts to certain shows. Her current favorites are “Cook’s County” and “Milk Street.” My choice is “Nick Stellino: Storyteller in the Kitchen.”

I recorded (I force myself to not say “taped”) an episode where he taught how to make “Eggs Benedict Stellino Style.” I will now poach my eggs in a different way and will now stick a thermometer into the cooking water.

Nick also guided us through the process of making homemade Hollandaise sauce. Hello Nick, goodbye Knorr’s!

Joy currently is not fully ambulatory. Once she’s on her feet (see what I did there?), I may give her permission to take over the kitchen chores once again with the stipulation that she teaches me how to bake from scratch so I can be like other male quarantine creatives. It’s been years since I’ve eaten beer bread.

Hmmm… bacon-flavored bread?

Nah! I don’t THINK so!

These days, Mike Wright can often be found cooking in a crock or seasoning his wok. Share your favorite original recipe with him at micwrighthamo@gmail.com.