Early in 1941 the Grays Harbor Post, in Aberdeen, Washington, introduced its readers to The Kitchen Critic, a new column chronicling life in nearby Cohassett Beach. By the end of the year the U.S. was at war, and columnist Kathy Hogan's weekly dispatches turned to soldiers, rationing, and the barbed wire that lined the sand dunes around her weathered cottage. Today, fifty years later, Kathy Hogan's writings provide a window onto how one Pacific Northwest community responded to World War II. Cohassett Beach Chronicles, a collection of Hogan's columns from the war years, offers a remarkable...