“I’m a Gloucester girl,” replied Tina Marie Lewis, when asked where she was from. “We lived in Guinea and the Glass area. When I was a small child my parents moved to Washington, D.C. We lived there five years. I called it hell years.”

The Rowe family returned to the area they loved, and built a home on Tina’s grandfather’s farm. In those years Tina learned to cook. “I did not take a Home Ec class. I learned by watching my grandmother and helping her. We have a large family, 12 siblings on my dad’s side and six on my mother’s side. There were always such good gatherings where the food was just great.”

Tina says she has been working ever since she was 14 years old helping on the farm, but she later expanded her cooking talents and worked with a local caterer. “It was here I learned a great deal, especially in food preparation.” Then later she took a job in a full-service kitchen cooking breakfast 4-10 a.m. and dinner 4-11 p.m. After two years she moved on and took a job as a wait...