Women’s History Month: Helen Dollaghan
Day seven of Women’s History Month features Helen Dollaghan of the Denver Post.
Helen earned a journalism degree from the University of Denver. She was the food editor of the Denver Post from 1958 to 1993, after starting at the newspaper taking classified advertising. She tested recipes in her own kitchen. She was known for breaking ground with on-site food photography such as having photographs taken at the local Squaw Pass.
She became known for the recipe Apricot Brandy Chicken when some readers improvised and caused oven doors to be blown off. The cooks who’d had trouble admitted to modifying the recipe by adding extra brandy, then covering the casserole with foil – in essence, constructing a tiny bomb in the oven.
She was considered “one of the nation’s experts on high-altitude cooking.” She wrote a cookbook and judged the Pillsbury Bake-Off. She was married to Cecil Dollaghan.