Janet McKenzie Hill was part of a generation that helped professionalize American cooking at the turn of the twentieth century. She graduated from the Boston Cooking School in 1892 and, four years later, became the founding editor of The Boston Cooking-School Magazine, which later became American Cookery. Over the course of her career, she wrote extensively about cooking, household management, and the increasingly precise, methodical approach to food that was shaping domestic education at the time.

At Topo Pino, Hill brought that work into a very different setting. Her Summer School of Cookery operated in South Chatham, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains, where students came for seasonal instruction in cooking and household practice. Contemporary records list Hill’s school among the recognized summer schools operating in New Hampshire, and surviving accounts from students describe both the instruction and the experience of being immersed in the surrounding landscape.

That combination — careful cooking, seasonal awareness, and attention to place — is what makes this history feel unusually connected to Topo Pino today.