Cooking club at Fahrney-Keedy meets weekly to bake and reminisce

"I always loved cooking," she said. "I cooked for my family, but I also did a lot entertaining. I can't stand up and do things anymore. But I do enjoy this — being able to do a little cooking again."

Cole, originally from Baltimore County, said she especially loved to bake. She remembered a raisin bread that her mother-in-law from Norway made at Christmas.


"But she never had a recipe for it," Cole said. "It was a scoop of this and a pinch of that."

Cole said she spent years trying to figure out the ingredients and perfect the measurements, through a lot of trial and error.

"I finally got it right and began serving it every Christmas morning, along with an egg casserole," she said.

Retta Jean Thompson, 67, of Hagerstown, said she enjoys cooking and named vegetable soup and homemade spaghetti as two of her specialties.

Her love of being in the kitchen rubbed off on her son, she said, who, today, "is a very good cook."

Thompson said she likes being a part of the cooking club "because it makes me feel like I'm back in the kitchen."

"I do miss it," she said.

Polly Osteen, who grew up in North Carolina, admitted she never enjoyed cooking.

"I didn't like it," she said. "My sister did all the cooking and I ate it."

But Osteen, who is in her 80s, still likes being a part of the cooking club.

"It gives me something to do," she shared. "And I get to spend time with friends. That's something I do enjoy."





Photos by Kevin G. Gilbert/Staff Photographer