Why you should Share..

My food business journey started years ago, with visiting my grandma Cora or Momma Cora as she liked to be called. Let me give you a little background history on momma Cora.
  Momma Cora was raised in a convent by nuns, as soon as she turned thirteen which was a woman's passage and being that she was alone with her father, she was placed in the home to apprentice as a cook. I remember her telling me how they had two pair of stockings and one pair of shoes for the entire year, and taking care of things was part of the strict regime. She found a passion in cooking and it led her thru a wonderful life.
  Momma Cora was raised in the town of Sanford and later moved to Forest city, working at a restaurant in downtown Orlando. As time went by she gained employment with a gentleman named Mr. Fosgate, who came to Florida from Boston to revitalize a packing house for fruit that had gone into bankrupcy during the big freeze.
  Hi- Acres was the orange packing house and with over two thousand employees, a lunch house was needed. Momma Cora started cooking and my grandfather would pass out the blue plate specials to everyone at lunch time. Times were good, packing fruit was in full force, then another huge freeze hit. Everyone showed up to work thru the night picking oranges, packing fruit and getting the trucks loaded, but it was not enough, they ran out of crates, folks got frostbite on their toes including my other grandma, Nana, who was the fastest packer in the plant.
  Momma Cora was in the kitchen cooking her blue plate specials and asked if she could use a few of the oranges to make a Marmalade to serve at lunch. The nun's ways were still in her cooking soul and waste was not a thing that was taken kindly. As she prepared the Marmalade, Mr. Fosgate came in as he always did to eat lunch, he was taken with delight as he ate the orange marmalade, the following day he made the announcement.
  Hi- Acres will start to use any oranges that we cannot pack to make Marmalade, it turned out to be a multi million dollar idea, as time went by Mr. Fosgate sold the company to Deep South which is a subsidiary of Winn-Dixie. Grandma Cora went on during retirement to Mr. Fosgate's estate to cook and help them raise their children, living a quiet life, never receiving monetary compensation.
  As the years went on and the children grew up she quietly retired to Conway and grew plants and had a spectacular plant nursery, forever loving the interaction of folks coming to her place and walking the grounds and admiring and purchasing her plants. We visited often and later moved her to our property in Plymouth were i spent many a day cooking with her and talking about recipes.
  Well time flies and when she passed away i received her cookbook, the gift of gab, and the greatest of all the act of sharing..which is what i want to do now as i continue to write about canning, making Marmalades and pickling..always remember..What " Can " you do..