“I have always liked to cook, especially when I am not rushed,” explained Jodie Nelson, mother of four and grandmother of five. “I didn’t do much cooking until I was married and remember well the first time I fried chicken. I had overcooked it so much it was too hard to eat.”

Jodie has reached the point in her life where cooking can be a pleasure, especially baking, one of her favorite methods. Her skilled efforts have brought her several top awards, two in baking and one in canning.

“My Bread and Butter Pickles are the only canning I do. We (Jodie and Billy Carney, partner) were camping on the Eastern Shore when I saw they were having a contest. Since I had a jar of my pickles with us, I decided to enter them.” Returning home via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, York River Bridge and the Gwynn’s Island Bridge, Jodie brought home (“my home I grew up in”) on the Island the first-place award, a new apron and a few remaining bread and butter pickles.

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