Hello,
I got the following on Peg Bracken from Wikipedia for those interested.
Jeanne
Ruth Eleanor Bracken was born on Feb. 25, 1918, in Filer, Idaho, and reared
in Clayton, Mo. (She adopted the nickname Peg as a young woman.) She earned
a bachelor's degree from Antioch College in 1940 and later worked as a
freelance advertising copywriter. Died Oct 23, 2007
Born in Filer, Idaho, Bracken grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated
from Antioch College in 1940. She married and moved to Portland, Oregon,
where she worked as an advertising copywriter
along with Homer Groening, father of Matt Groening.
She lived for a number of years in
Bolinas, California.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Bracken's writing reassured women that they did
not have to be perfect to have a happy, well-managed home. Her best-known
book
is The I Hate to Cook Book, written in
1960.
The book came about when she and some other working-women friends "pooled
their ignorance" and came up with a core of recipes strong on ease of
preparation.
It was followed by The I Hate to Housekeep Book and The Appendix to the I
Hate to Cook Book. The two cookbooks were later published together as The
Compleat
I Hate to Cook Book. All are illustrated with amusing line drawings by
Hilary Knight
(best known for illustrating
Eloise
by
Kay Thompson).
The recipes are distinguished by unusual names and peppered with sardonic
comments. For example, one recipe is for "Wolfe Eggs," which are for eggs
the
way the fictional
Nero Wolfe
would cook them. "Stayabed Stew" could be left to cook by itself and was
perfect "for those days when you are en negligee, en bed, with a murder
story
and a box of bonbons, or possibly a good case of flu"; mashed potatoes
topped with cheese and baked in a casserole become "
Spuds O'Grotten".
A chapter on vegetables and salads is subtitled "This Side of
Beriberi
"; her selection of simple family-oriented main dishes is "30 Day-by-Day
Entrees, or, The Rock Pile". The recipes themselves were written in much the
same
style ("Brown the garlic, onion, and crumbled beef in the oil. Add the
flour, salt, paprika, and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes
while you
light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink").
She went on to write books in a similar vein on housekeeping, etiquette and
travel. She also wrote humorous pieces for women's magazines.
... in the past few years I have unintentionally made some culinary
discoveries, mainly involving prepared foods and easier ways to do things
... I am
well aware that to skilled and ardent cooks my innocent pride in these
findings will resemble that of the little man who showed up at the Patent
Office
last year with his new invention, designed for talking across distances,
which he had named "the telephone."
Bracken continued writing into her seventies, publishing her last book, On
Getting Old for the First Time, in 1997. She died in 2007. The I Hate to
Cook
Book was updated and re-released in 2010.
[2]
She is survived by a daughter, Johanna Bracken, who wrote a foreword for the
fiftieth anniversary edition of the I Hate To Cook Book.
Partial bibliography[
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