Any fool can wash a dish

Any fool can wash a dish -- but it takes lots and lots of practice to become a good cook. That’s why I left the cooking up to my kids. I gladly washed dishes and cleaned the kitchen after each one of them, including my four boys.

Growing up during such hard times, Mom never let me cook because she was careful not to waste any of the kitchen staples such as flour, lard, eggs and milk. I always hated to cook after I got married. I didn’t know how to make pies, bread, gravy, fried chicken and all the wonderful smelling food that she raised us on.

All my children became good cooks!

Marvin could make some of the best barbeque to be found. When he fired up the big round cast iron kettle he used, people started gathering around. Jo Nell is a professional cook on a tow boat on the Mississippi River.

Sidney can cook anything, anywhere in any way necessary. I guess that’s why everyone calls him Skillet. And my goodness, Gayle has cooked for half the people in Pennsylvania. Those northerners found out that they liked that ole’ southern cooking!

Times have certainly changed from those days when fried chicken meant a trip to the hen house, not to the Colonel’s drive thru window!



Polly and her mother Lottie