Winter 2026 5 FROM THE EDITOR ART BY JOÃO FAZENDA I’ve been test-baking for this food-centric issue of the Stater all week. There’s a batch of MU Sticky Rolls rising on the kitchen counter, and my clothes smell like cinnamon and sugar. I find myself thinking about the process in a new way, thanks to OSU Extension Service master teacher Nellie Oehler, ’64, who explained how she taught budding kitchen scientists bread-baking skills by having them pretend that yeast was a baby they needed to keep alive. (The lesson for me: Don’t skip the salt!) Food nourishes, sustains and delights us, but for all the importance it has in our lives, it’s easy to overlook the thought that goes into bringing it to our tables. Part of what makes working on the Oregon Stater fun is getting to meet so many experts who live in the world of science and have the skills to show us how to apply it. I interviewed Oehler while learning about the OSU Extension Master Food Preserver program. She co-founded it in 1980 with the late Professor Carolyn Raab. Oehler led the Lane County branch for more than 20 years and launched the food safety and preservation helpline. We spoke on the first day of her retirement. “Before the internet was really popular, the place to call was your Extension office,” she told me. Never was that more apparent than in 1999. “The year of Y2K, we had 12,000 phone calls.” Why? “Well, the Earth was going to die — we had to get ready! We just got flooded with these phone calls.” (They’re still getting calls, she said, about how to use the 50-pound bags of beans people put away back then.) What makes the Extension helpline and website different from the endless flow of advice available on YouTube and the greater internet is that their guidance is based on research. “It’s a place where people know that they can come and get reliable information,” she said. “There’s so much misinformation.” As Oregon’s original agricultural college, OSU has been bringing science to the field since day one — and to the kitchen since 1889.That’s when the Department of Household Economy and Hygiene, later known as the School of Home Economics, became the first program of its kind west of the Rockies, just as the germ theory of disease began gaining ground. We often forget how important its food mission was, especially in an era before refrigeration, pasteurization and food safety regulations. Public health really did begin in the home. Though the name has changed — it’s now known as the College of Health — that spirit lives on not only in its many living alumni and the nutrition students it continues to train, but also in every Extension volunteer teaching canning safety or food storage basics. That’s what OSU food researchers and teachers have always been about: science that makes a practical difference in daily lives. The results are all around us — which reminds me, it’s time to get those sticky rolls in the oven. Scholle McFarland Editor, Oregon Stater KITCHEN SCIENCE Winter 2026, Vol. 111, No. 1 PUBLISHERS John Valva, executive director, OSUAA; vice president of alumni relations, OSU Foundation Dan Jarman, ’88, chair, OSUAA Board of Directors EDI TOR Scholle McFarland DIGITAL & PRODUCTION MANAGER Travis Stanford GRADUATE ASSISTANT Cora Lassen ART DIRECTION & DESIGN Pentagram Austin, DJ Stout, Becky Plante DESIGN CONSULTANT Teresa Hall, ’86 COPY EDITOR Charles Purdy ADDRESS CHANGES ForOregonState.org/Update LETTERS AND QUESTIONS stater@osualum.com 877-678-2837 Oregon Stater 204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center Corvallis, OR 97331 ADVERTISING Travis Stanford advertise@osualum.com 541-737-2786 ADVISORY COUNCIL Nicole “Nikki” Brown, ’04 Vicki Guinn, ’85 Tyler Hansen Colin Huber, ’10 Jennifer Milburn, ’96 Brian Monihan, ’86 Elena Passarello Lori Rush, ’78 Roger Werth, ’80 Oregon Stater (ISSN 0885-3258) is published three times a year by the Oregon State University Alumni Association in collaboration with the Oregon State University Foundation and Oregon State University. Content may be reprinted only by permission of the editor.
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