Foodies Over 50

L.G. VERNON 

Greetings from the Frozen North!

I’m L. G. Vernon. I live on the prairie near Cheyenne, Wyoming, at about 6400-feet elevation. A typical Wyomingite, I never notice the wind unless it’s cranking over forty MPH, I know how to use 4-wheel-drive, and I can prepare wild game a hundred different ways. I’ve been a published, working writer for over twenty years. That means I write, I edit, and sometimes I cry.

I’m a "scratch cook." I very seldom use processed foods, preparing every meal from "scratch." I grew up in the kitchen at my mother’s elbow. She, in turn, grew up during the great Depression, which was an abiding factor in everything she taught us. So that means I can and have raised and butchered meat animals; kept chickens, cows, and goats; grown prodigious gardens and canned the bounty; ground my own wheat; made butter and cheese; made bread; and dehydrated meat, fruit, vegetables, and herbs. I have a number of pressure cookers I use on a regular basis. I’ve lived without electricity and cooked on a wood-burning stove. I still use my great grandmother’s cast iron. I served as the Culinary Superintendent for the local county fair for eleven years. I often speak publically on a number of food-related subjects. I collect kitchenalia, which is spread out all over our house.

I enjoy the preparation of traditional American foods, but I also make a number of ethnic dishes, my favorites being Mexican, Italian, and Asian. I love baking pies, our friends referring to me as The Pie Lady, because if there’s a get-together, I’m bringing pie. Often more than one.

A friend of mine once had a writing gig with a very large poultry producer, formulating and writing recipe card inserts for their products. I gave her a hand at that, many of my own recipes turning up in various packages of chicken breasts and thighs sold by grocers all over the U. S. My recipes have also been published in two cookbooks, the latest being the Julia Child Award-winning Spirit of the Harvest by Beverly Cox Black.

So, as you can tell, I love to cook—and I love to figure things out. If you have a cooking-related problem, give me a shout. Maybe I can help.