Linda Stephenson (La Pine) is a master cold climate gardener and Dutch Oven cook who learned her skills from her father. Recognized as one of Central Oregon’s leading authorities on gardening and foodways, she is an 8th-generation Oregonian keeping the family’s cooking and gardening traditions alive.
Bio
Now eight generations deep in Oregon, Linda Stephenson’s great, great grandfather left Hebron, Indiana in 1853 to head west with his family on the Oregon Trail. Raised in Bend, Stephenson spent much of her time with her father, Buck Matson, hunting, fishing, and helping him tend the family garden. “We’ve always done something with the land. It’s just what we do.” Stephenson’s knowledge of gardening, and in part, cooking, came by way of her father. Stephenson recalls, “We would sit out in the vegetable garden and he would peel and quarter turnips for us to munch on while he explained mixing the soil just right with compost and adding fertilizer.” An avid cook as well, after the workday was finished he could often be found in the kitchen with a white dish towel around his waist baking bread. Through the years Stephenson has kept her family’s gardening and cooking traditions alive. A fourth place finisher in the team World Dutch Oven Competition in Sandy, Utah, she is now recognized as one of Central Oregon’s leading authorities on gardening and foodways. Approaching their third decade in the nursery business, she and her husband, Sonny, operate L&S Gardens in La Pine, home to Stephenson’s Annual Rhubarb Festival. Like clockwork on the first day of deer season, you’ll find Stephenson at the family’s hunting camp, Dutch Oven in hand, preparing prime rib and baked potatoes with chocolate cherry cake to follow.
