Charleston Women Spring 2021

www. Char l es tonWomen . com | www. Char l es tonWomenPodcas t . com | www. ReadCW. com CW W hen Janice Hudgins was growing up, there was a weekly egg roll assembly line in their kitchen. “I rolled them with my mom, and dad fried them,” she recalled. “My little brother Ryan, who is now my head chef, was too small to do much more than peel off the wrappers. Then my older brother would deliver them to the local caterer in Moncks Corner, who just happened to be our chorus teacher.” Food has always been a family affair and the glue that kept their far-flung relatives connected. Thu-Ha, the original Miss Ha and Hudgins’ mother, moved from Vietnam to Charleston with her husband and two young sons, following in the footsteps of other family members who had settled here. Every Saturday, close to 30 of them gathered at their home, cousins playing with cousins and the men smoking and talking politics, while the women huddled in the kitchen with an assortment of potluck dishes, preparing the meal. Miss Ha always cooked for her family. She worked the 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift at the Piggly Wiggly on Meeting Street for over 20 years —where she got her nickname — then came home to cook a family meal before trading places with her husband, who set out to his 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift at a local television station. “It was important to them that family took care of family. There was always an adult home with us,” Hudgins said. Fast-forward to today, and Hudgins is now a mom of her own with four children. After what she called “10 years of extended maternity leave,” she was ready to reenter the working world. To date, she is the only one in her family to graduate from college with a communications degree from the College of Charleston. Cooking was not her first choice. She had thought about pharmaceutical sales and dabbled in real estate too, but food was always a passion — just not BY PAMELA JOUAN What Came First Was the Eggroll The Story behind Little Miss Ha A taste of what you may find at Little Miss Ha Vietnamese Cuisine. Photo by L i ndsay Nar c i s so.