While making her way through her kitchen, she says she keeps herself busy preparing cakes for her sister’s missionary trip.

Gwen Picquet, 54, is known for her excellent cooking skills, and for donating her time, cooking passionately, for a cause.

“I can wake up at 7 a.m. and cook until midnight,” she said as she explained her love for cooking.

Picquet often gets lost in preparing and organizing special cooking events and suppers for her church. Today she stands in her kitchen as her great-nieces tug at her, wondering if they will prepare cookies for church this evening.

“The Girls In Action (GAs), a missionary group for first through fifth-graders, will prepare cookies and lemonade this month in remembrance of Annie Armstrong, a missionary who dedicated her life to teaching the whole world about Jesus,” said Picquet.

As she picked up a magazine called, GA World, she explained the girls are required to prepare a dish monthly.

“Last month they read about how the children of Indonesia purchased their food on the sides of the road, and about how they would prepare chicken soup. So, they made chicken soup. They devoured it,” she said with a laugh.

Picquet said she started making homemade biscuits at the early age of nine.

“I made my first biscuits in 4-H. I was in the fourth grade,” she said as she explained she attended Thalean Elementary School, long since closed.

Picquet sits down to read over ingredients she will need to prepare her next project.

“I plan to make a dozen cakes for my sister’s mission trip. I will freeze them before we leave for Easter. My family will gather here for Easter next week and then we will travel to Charleston to celebrate Easter with my husband Bennie’s family,” she said.

Picquet said her home is the hub of activity during the holidays, with some 35 to 40 family members in attendance.

“We will prepare a ham and two to three turkeys and, everyone brings a dish,” she said as she described most of her waking hours are involved in cooking.

“I read recipe books like many would read a novel,” she said as she searches through a homemade recipe book with many of her favorite recipes.

“My son Ben loves my ham and potato casserole, but he picks the ham out. He loves the potatoes and cheese. It’s basically a scalloped potato,” she said explaining she loves to cook old-fashioned recipes, but often settles for a few quick and easy ones, because of the fast pace at which most live today.