When Casey McCreary was asked how and when she learned to cook a sweet smile appeared and she replied, “My grandfather. He taught me how to cook, read a recipe and how to alter it all. I guess it began about the time I was in the fourth grade. I don’t recall him doing a lot of cooking, but he sure taught me.”

And as the mother of five children, two girls and three boys ages 13 to 22, Casey has had a lot of experience practicing what she learned as a child. She does it well. “Cooking for me is relaxing. I love to bake,” Casey explained. She and her fiancé Jason Cater have eight children between them so Casey says there are many birthday cakes to make, “but I love doing it.”

She has lived in Mathews County for five years, having moved from Middlesex County. Last month she read an ad in the paper about a Father Day’s cake contest at the Mathews Historical Museum. “It’s the first contest I have ever entered.” Casey went home with the first-place award. “The recipe remains a family s...