Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Chop Wood, Carry Water: Colonial cooking takes strength of arms and stomach

Somewhere in heaven, a woman in a homespun linen dress is laughing under her white cotton cap -- and not because a fellow angel told a good joke. Rather, she's watching me as I attempt to turn the floured pieces of chicken I've got frying in a bath of hot lard without getting any (more) ashes in the pan. A nice breeze has kicked up on this brilliantly sunny Saturday morning at Woodville Plantation in Collier, sending up an occasional puff of powdery residue from the hot coals under the three-legged, cast-iron "spider" the chicken is cooking in (21/04) Read