Off the Wild Western Coast

In 1875, Libby Baines was already somewhat of a legend in her New England town, though not for any reason polite society liked to talk about. As a chef, she had a creative flair that bordered on scandal: She made stews with octopus, reimagined the clam as an object of culinary desire, and had once—famously—served raw oysters to the Ladies' Benevolent Society, sending three matrons into fits of either rapture or horror.

She wore her hair in loose, salt-wind waves even in church, and the only apron she ever cared to tie on was stained with the evidence of her experiments. It was no wonder, then, that the menfolk, though grateful for her food, regarded Libby as unfit for a sensible marriage, while her friends just looked on, bemused, at her peculiar ambitions.

It was to those ambitions that she clung on moonless nights, when the ocean's breath crept through the cracks in her garret window and the clatter of lobster pots in the harbor below echoed in her dreams. Libby wanted more from life than another round of the annual chowder contest or the dubious honor of being the first woman in town to pickle eel. She wanted adventure. She wanted to see the world—at least the part of it that lay on the other side of the continent.