Cooking was always Almena Sinclair’s forte. In fact, left to her, the centenarian would still be in the kitchen, despite not being allowed to by relatives who are concerned about the trembling of her arm.

The fondest memories of her relatives involve her time in the kitchen, most notably the cornmeal pone and the ‘blue drawers’ she would often bake.

“She was a good housewife. She cook her meals, she bake and she usually do what you call the cornmeal pone,” her granddaughter, Maxine Spence recounted. “She use the dry corn and boil it and then she grater it and mix it up with butter and sugar and thing, and she bake that — the fire on the top and the fire on the bottom.”

“And hallelujah in the middle,” her son Arthur Sinclair chimed in with laughter.

“And she used to do the blue drawers; she usually do very good blue drawers,” Spence continued.

In her youth, she also used her skill to earn a living as she would prepare meals for sale.

“She used to come to Sav (Savanna-la-Mar) every Saturday and do her little shopping buy her little fish and so. Reason for that now, she used to do a little selling at the estate, because me father was working at the Cornwall Estate, so she used to fry her little fish and make her little dumpling and carry it to the cane cutters and sell them,” her son Arthur Sinclair recalled.

Spence also related an instance of a mishap in the kitchen and her grandmother’s handling of it.

“I remember one night, that time my grandfather was alive, and for some reason the stove was blowing up and that was like three burners, and she just grabbed the stove and throw it outside and when she throw it out there the stove was standing on the legs still, and nothing happened to it,” she reflected.

The centenarian celebrated the milestone two Fridays ago and was feted by relatives and friends last week Saturday a short distance from home — at the Savanna-la-Mar United Church in Westmoreland.

“Me feel alright man,” she said when she spoke of her age. “Me feel good, me feel very good,” she said in a hushed tone before singing the chorus

I feel Good.

Despite having to dismount a few steps and using a walking stick, this 100-year-old still washes her clothes on weekends.

“Sometimes Saturday morning time; when I leave go market, I always close the door. when I come and see di door open I know that she is outside washing,” Arthur, her son stated.

“She go around the back. She use her walking stick and go around there and wash. And if she get the chance she will want to cook to but because she have the nerves problem we don’t mek she go around the stove,” her grandson Bryon Sinclair added.

Until roughly five years ago, before she moved from Hartford in the parish to live with her son in Gooden’s River, the centenarian would get up and rake her yard daily.

The centenarian also farmed the land, producing corn, peas, cassava and yam.

“She is active, but in terms of going to church you know the church is a distance, so the church comes to her,” Spence explained, noting that she sometimes visits the United Church with her son.

Described as a calm spirit, Almena is said to be a quiet person.

“She became more talkative after 90. She communicates better and she encourages you to the Saviour, so she talks a lot about Him and what He has done for her and how she is dependent on Him,” Spence noted.

“Mama is a quiet person, not very talkative. She goes about doing what she has to do, always caring for the sick. She is always there for the sick; family friends, she is there for them. She is always going to look for somebody who is sick so it might be her church sister friend, community member, as long as it is somebody that she knows,” she stated.

The mother of three, who has outlived two of her children, has surpassed the expectation of some, save for her grandson, Bryon.

“You know that when my grandfather died in 2002, the first thing I said to them (the family) was that Mama is going to pass Papa age and everybody ask me how me know that. So when she turn 90 — my grandfather died at age 90 — I said to them, Mama is going to live to 100 and everybody keep on asking me again ‘how you know that’. Me say, ‘just watch and see. yuh nuh see how mama strong, mama very strong,’” he told the

Sunday Observer, beaming with pride.