The East Texas cooking started as I know as early as in the early 1960s when people had cafés and juke joints, as they called them back then, and people made chicken and fried pork chop sandwiches and you could smell them cooking from as far as a mile away when you were in the country. There was nothing like that kind of cooking. I remember when Madear used to cook and sell food and people would drive miles just to get her cooking. I would just watch them as they were eating. It's seems to have brought a joy to the spirit. Them telling her how great the food was is what made me find joy in cooking, knowing that if you put your heart and soul into cooking, people will love it. Maybe that's why they call it soul food because you put your heart and soul into it. People everywhere heard about Little Mary's fried chicken, and as she was cooking singing her spiritual songs in her own way, I guess she blessed it as she cooked it. Now I find that same joy in cooking.