Firth, Grace: - I have always gardened, preserved and cooked in the old ways though I did not realize that I was different from other homemakers until the 1960s. My isolation from the mainstream can be explained.As a child I lived with my grandparents, both sets of whom were older than average, and I went directly from high school to college summer school. During college I was poor. After graduating from the University of Southern California, I traveled to Alaska where living conditions were somewhat old-fashioned. Once married, I got involved with moving to Virginia, taking care of three youngsters and writing historical novels about my beloved Alaska. My husband and I purchased a little bit of Alaska, a small wilderness tract near the mountains in Virginia, where we spent all our weekends and holidays.Although I was secretary of a variety of community associations, I had little housewifely interaction and rarely went shopping. I remained unaware of the changes in American cooking and eating habits until I returned to graduate school in 1968. From the young men and women, I learned that my way of doing and their aspirations for the good life had a lot in common. My life reflected that which I had learned in my grandmothers' stillrooms, gardens and homes; the young people were putting their faith in the old ways and in the goodness of the earth. --Grace Firth