Martha Thompson

“If you can’t cook with your heart, don’t bother–it won’t come out the same. I love to cook, and I love to be around people,” said Martha Thompson of Calhoun City. “I am an old school cook” she said, but not as much as her grandmother, Naomi Kilgore, who raised her.

Mrs. Naomi was South Calhoun School cafeteria manager for years, and she did everything from scratch and took no short-cuts.
But Martha is one to look at a recipe and figure out how to prepare it quicker, even though she didn’t know about things like boxed cake mix until after she married.
“I love to eat, and taste is all that matters, but I don’t like to spend the day in the kitchen,” she said.

Naomi bought an electric stove when Martha was 9 or 10, and she really wanted to do the cooking then, because she didn’t like working in the field.
Her grandmother told her to go in there and do it, but Naomi didn’t think Martha’s cooking was good, unless she did it her way.  She learned to make butter roll from her grandmother, but, “I don’t do it her way,” she said.
Martha worked in the restaurant business for 25-30 years in Bruce and Calhoun City. She stopped  at the BP in Calhoun City before the store was even open, and asked Andy Reid of Bruce for a job. He hired her as a cook, and “it went from there.”

That was her first real lunch cooking job, and she said  she learned all she knew business-wise from Andy and wife, Amy.
“The kitchen was mine. I was blessed because people let me do it my way in the kitchen,” she said.
Andy brought his mother, the late Tula Reid Vance, over to teach Martha how to make butter roll, but she didn’t tell him she already knew how.
“I don’t care how good you are, you can always learn from somebody else,” said Martha.

She also worked for Charles Alexander, Vida Weir, Laster and Betty Smith, Bruce Nursing Home, for Lanny Fleming in Calhoun City and at Cagni’s. She had Martha’s Place for two or three years in Calhoun City, which later became M&M Kitchen for awhile. She also helped her son Willie, with Roo Roo’s while it was open in Calhoun City. She thinks he can cook as well as she does, but he doesn’t agree.

Her granddaughter, also named Naomi, 13, likes to bake cookies and cupcakes. She likes to cook, period, and wants to be trained to make her grandmother’s butter roll soon. They also enjoy watching Cupcake Wars and Chopped together.
Martha said she agreed to be a “Look Who’s Cookin’” cook for Naomi to have something to look back on that was hopefully an influence in her life.
Martha’s favorite food is dressing, and her customers’ favorites over the years include butter roll, dressing, smothered pork chops and potatoes and lasagna (which is her son’s recipe). Not one who measures, she explained a little about how she makes three of those favorites.

She boils the chicken for the dressing in golden onion soup mix. To her cornbread she always adds a little butter and flour.  She sautes the onion and bell pepper in butter, and uses a can of cream of chicken soup, a can of cream of celery soup, sage and black pepper. She mixes it to a moist, but not runny consistency and bakes at 400° until it browns. (She usually puts in two or three chopped eggs.)

Dry gravy mix goes in the pan first for the smothered pork chops, then she places the slices of onion,  with the fried pork chops on top. Pour water over and bake. To her sliced potatoes, she adds onion, pepper and salt, and cooks covered on top of the stove.

For butter roll, she adds a little flour to her Bisquick, then mixes it with milk and/or water, and stirs to biscuit dough consistency. While that sets, she mixes evaporated milk with flour thickener, and vanilla flavoring before cooking in double boiler. (If you don’t like it real rich, add half sweet milk/half evaporated.) “Sweeten with sugar to your taste,” she said. Roll out dough, pour melted butter over, then sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon and/or nutmeg. Cut and fold dough over and press corners (“sort of like a fried pie.”) Pour sauce in pan, then add dough pieces. Top with melted butter, and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon (optional) on top. Bake on 350°-400° for 30-45 minutes.
Her grandmother and Mrs. Tula rolled up their dough and sliced it, but she makes hers fold-over style, once again to save herself some time.