I am a culinary historian interested in researching foodways and cooking apparatus – stew stoves, bake ovens, Rumfords, steam kitchens, and ranges. For almost 20 years I have demonstrated and taught bake oven and hearth cooking. My writing includes 20-40 page info/recipe class booklets, longer subject booklets, newsletter articles and now articles for my blog. I also do extensive research for my talks on Lemonade, Chocolate, Hearth to Fireless Cookers and other PowerPoint presentations listed here.

It all started with a visit to Teddy Roosevelt's mother's house near Atlanta and seeing their working beehive oven. Although I had cooked for years over fires and coals while camping, the brick oven was something new and exciting... and it still is. I signed up, took four classes, and started being a volunteer in the Bulloch Hall Kitchen Guild.

My passion for researching had led me to a degree in History, then a Masters in Library and Information Sciences, and continues every day. I am particularly drawn to obscure subjects not overly researched and information from period manuscripts and books. One of the attractions of food history is there no end to the research and experimenting with old recipes. My research has led me around the US and Britain to libraries, historical societies and museum libraries. I am very fortunate to live near the Library of Congress, National Archives and the other phenomenal collections. I am always willing to travel anywhere to look at one of “my flue-zies” - stew stoves, Rumfords, metal ovens, hot closets, and kitchen boilers; or to take a class or cook on a different apparatus or subject.

Historic Culinary Resources online – hearthcook.com

My historic cooking web site was started to expedite online research and for my hearth cooking students to readily find further information. As a culinary historian using primary resources, I started collecting online cookbooks, which at that point were scattered at a variety of sites. Feeding America was just starting to upload books, and Google Books, Internet Archives, etc. didn’t exist. By the late 1990s, my computer “files” and the “favorites” were too full of links. The cookbooks (now about 650) are listed by date and also by author. For example, there are seven books by Eliza Leslie, and three editions of Elizabeth Raffald from various sites. The other large collection of links involved museums (about 300) with pre1920 cooking demonstrations.

Subject searches and articles have been added on the home page as well as monthly recipe and picture links lists. Some of the major subjects are glossaries of terms, suppliers of historic ingredients, art and images of food and kitchens, culinary groups, blogs and cooking apparatus such as stew stoves, fireless cookers, and ovens.

Researching Food History – Cooking and Dining blog

I started the blog to post articles of various lengths with references and more pictures. It is also another means to announce symposiums and events in addition to the website calendar.