With a gimlet eye and a martini close at hand, Peg Bracken, who died Saturday at 89 at her home in Portland, Ore., channeled the anxieties of millions of women across America in her best-selling “The I Hate to Cook Book.”

First published in 1960, the book was inspired by a collection of Portland-area women who called themselves “The Hags.” Each afternoon, these uninspired housewives gathered to let off steam and drink martinis before speeding home to make dinner for their husbands. (One Hag went on to be mayor of Portland.)

The book was as long on attitude as it was on onion soup mix. “I think I should have received an award from Lipton,” Bracken told NPR in 1999.

Two recipes were her favorites: “Aggression Cookies” and “Mayonnaise Lamb Stew.” Another was “Stayabed Stew,” which included the instruction, “Mix all ingredients in a casserole, cover tightly and place in a 275-degree oven. Now go back to bed.” For “Skid Row Stroganoff”: “let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink.”

Satirical or social protest cookbooks were unheard of, and the manuscript was a tough sell to publishing houses — and even to Bracken’s own husband, who, she said, was “totally discouraging.” She later boasted that “he had to eat a huge platter of crow” and the book went on to sell a reported 3 million copies. The couple later divorced and the wryly optimistic Bracken remarried three more times.

Bracken went on to create a franchise out of strategies for coping with domestic dystopia, including “The I Hate to Housekeep Book” (1962), “I Try to Behave Myself”(1964, a book of etiquette), and “A Window Over the Sink” (1981, more observations on home life).

She wistfully recalled her grandfather’s commentary on her grandmother’s housekeeping: “You can eat off Em’s floor, there’s a lot of good stuff down there.” As for cleaning, her best advice was simply to remove your glasses before you begin.

Born February 25, 1918, in Idaho and raised in Missouri, Bracken graduated from Antioch College in 1940, worked as a radio continuity writer, and eventually settled down as an advertising copywriter in Portland.

At one point, she had a sideline writing a comic strip called “Phoebe, Get Your Man” in collaboration with Homer Groening, father of the creator of “The Simpsons.” She contributed humorous doggerel to magazines and newspapers.

After making quite clear her views on housewifery, Bracken became something of a freelance wit, and went on national speaking tours. Her views on anything that crossed her mind were published in “I Didn’t Come Here to Argue” (1969) and “But I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World” (1973). Among a set of “Seven Commandments,” she promulgated: “Thou shalt not scream too loudly for women’s lib lest thou get it.” She also was a pitchwoman for Birds Eye frozen vegetables. A book of memoirs and verse with decorations by the author was published in 1997, “On Getting Old for the First Time.”

A Christian Science Monitor profile of Bracken in 1981 showed that she was not quite the slugabed she affected — she regularly ground her own whole wheat flour for epic bread-baking sessions.

But mostly she avoided the kitchen. Asked by NPR in 1999 what she ate each day, she answered doughnut holes, skim milk, and juice for breakfast, and boiled eggs and wine for lunch. “And for dinner I just hope that my husband will take me out, which he often does,” she said.

Her fourth husband, John Ohman, survives her, as do a daughter, three stepchildren, and 11 grandchildren.