You may see me as a Washingtonian journalist, but there's a Wisconsin girl more than skin deep. Facing the pandemic alone has turned me back to simpler times for consolation.

First things first: bacon fat and real butter on the stove, just like Grandma Hicks used to keep. Eggs in the fridge, next to milk and cream for coffee. Wisconsin isn't called "America's Dairyland" for nothing. A century ago, a Stiehm ancestor had a butter and egg delivery service in Milwaukee.

So, you see, I am in spiritual touch with my roots.

I have her box of elegantly handwritten recipes right here. Eleanor Hicks keeps me company with a square timepiece that transports you in a moment back to a land of homemade praline cookies, spice bars and exquisite baked rhubarb right from the garden. Sour cream potato salad for picnics with coconut torte or heavenly hash desserts. That's just for starters.

Ice box cookies, anyone? (I can't remember what those tasted like.)

My grandmother's family lived in "town" and had a ranch in rural Kansas. As a girl, she worked there in the summers, making meals for the men. Hungry ranch hands ate a big breakfast at sunrise.

As a plump grandmother, she once told me her worst fear was running out of food when hosting parties or holiday dinners. She never did.

You may wonder about the bacon fat. That's a tradition in the Midwest. Smearing it in a pan often gets the cooking going. Same goes for the baking. My grandmother's ginger cookie recipe (heavy on molasses) calls for "bacon dripping" mixed with shortening. It gives a smoky aura to the sugar-sprinkled ginger cookies, a kick that you can't get store-bought. Bacon fat works in mysterious ways.

(Oscar Mayer used to have its main factory in Madison. No more.)

Pies deserve special mention, studies in custard and chocolate, strawberries and meringue. And what exactly is a "black-bottom pie" with graham cracker crust? My mother, her daughter, never made it. At summer's end came canning and making jam from the peaches, apples and raspberries in the patch I liked to get lost in.

In my grandparents' Madison house, where they lived in a village by Lake Mendota, lunch was always at noon, and dinner was at 6. Always. My grandfather had a soft-boiled egg in the morning and played ragtime on the piano at night. Something about that clocklike order makes you sleep well under the quilts.

Wisconsin and Kansas were settled by pioneer women and men. They left marks on descendants that give solace in hard times.

I know wives were lonely out on the prairie's endless expanse, sparkling in the sun and snow-white all winter. All you have to do is read their diaries. They were torn from family and friends back East, whom they might never see again. They moved 1,000 miles West, which might as well be the moon.

Letters and diaries were precious for self-preservation. Of course, they had plenty to keep them busy, like their Puritan pilgrim foremothers. I come from a long line of sturdy women. This means I must be brave while missing my friends, starved for society in quarantine.

In American homesteading, men did the outdoor building, taming, hunting and planting on the wilderness, tilling the rich soil they settled. They developed a camaraderie with one another in town. Women socialized at church. They were respected as head of the home sphere, which they kept tidy and warm. They must also sew clothes and keep the family fed.

In other words, they had to milk the cow, churn the butter and keep a few chickens for fresh eggs. Pork was a treat in those parts. All the things I keep at hand in my kitchen here, they worked hard for.

Pie, practically an American art form, came about from women making one for dinner with what was available — savory or sweet.

Laura Ingalls Wilder tells tales remembered from pioneer days. She was once a Wisconsin girl.

My grandmother's recipe box is a flowering of those female skills and strengths, handed down to me. Little did she know how much I'd need it in 2020.

Jamie Stiehm can be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To read her weekly column and find out more about Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

Photo credit: markusspiske at Pixabay