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It has been said that eating is a necessity, but cooking is an art.

Judy Reece spent more than half of her adult life cooking. Judy loved to cook and try new dishes. She was employed at Little Milligan School as a cook for 26 years and also cooked at Shirley’s Restaurant for 14 years.

Judy’s son, Kevin Reece, said his mother could cook just about anything. “Through cooking she met a lot of people. The kids at Little Milligan loved her, and she loved them. She had a lot of stories about her time at  Little Millligan. She wouldn’t let any kid go hungry,” he said.

When Kevin was much younger and attending Little Milligan School, he would get up and accompany his mother to school at 5 a.m. and he would stay until school was out for the day.

Kevin shared that his mother made a career of cooking. ”Most days she cooked three meals,  and I can’t think of anything that she couldn’t cook. She made good cakes, especially German Chocolate,” he said.

Judy not only was a school cook, she was a church cook, too. Often she would cook for special church events at Little Milligan Baptist, where she was a member. “She could make the best cube steak and gravy. This was one of the dishes she often made for church events,” her son shared.

He noted that one of his favorite foods made by his mother was spaghetti and meatballs. “It was so good, and she made it a lot. But, I liked everything she made,” he said.

Kevin said his mother grew up in Ohio. She was the daughter of Peter and Mary Vanko. “That was the only place that we ever traveled to,” Kevin shared, adding, “we didn’t do vacations.”

He had two adopted brothers and some cousins, but usually it was just Kevin and his mother and daddy and his two adopted brothers.

“Mom was a home person. In her spare time, she liked to clean and work circle the word puzzles. And, she loved to go grocery shopping. It was not unusual for her to go to the store three or four times a week. Weekly, on Thursday, she would go to Martha Courtner’s in Butler and get her hair done. She always wanted her hair to look good,” said Kevin.

He also noted that his mother had a knack for making groceries and food last. “She always cooked three meals a day. She was a good mother. We never went hungry,” he shared.

He noted that his mother did use recipes…but not many. “When it came to cooking, she usually did her own thing and it always turned out tasty and good,” Kevin shared.

For most people, cooking is not an art, but something they do out of necessity for their families. 

There’s cooking, and then there’s cooking with passion, creativity, and love. 

Judy Reece firmly believed that the energy you put into a recipe was just as important as the ingredients you used. To Judy, cooking was an art. She brought soul to the recipe.

Through the years, many people have eaten at Shirley’s Restaurant at Little Milligan. They maybe didn’t know the cook, but they had tasted her food and they kept coming back. The best compliment a cook can get.