A Note From Marsha Hinko Pedersen: "Grandma Hinko"

 Grandma Hinko immigrated from Ukraine when she was a teen. Her role in the family was to cook. She was rarely seen outside of her kitchen. Even had a kitchen at the cottage in the Indiana Dunes. And a smokehouse for sausage.

Her daughter Marie had to go over and clean the house because Grandma was busy cooking. Grandma filled big blue roaster pans with stuffed cabbages, pierogis, etc and my bachelor uncle and my grandfather would fill the car with pans and drive to the homes of the other family members to drop off food and, always, two 10” pies. Just in case we might have a hunger attack later in the day. Ha.

She also had a garden and grew poppies. Then she would save the seed pods and use the seeds to make poppy seed cake. Oh, and she also baked huge loaves of bread!

I inherited the garden/cooking gene. 

Grandma Sabina Hinko in her kitchen with Grandpa John Hinko