Sherry Lucas //,

Top photo: Chef Cat Cora, left, seen with her mother, Dr. Virginia Lee, will be featured at a Tuesday fundraiser for the Alma O. Brothers and Dr.

It’s a legacy of strength, the celebrity Air Jordan Fusion 4 chef said.

Of stories, too. The mention of burnt toast Cat’s, actually, from college days can Nike KD 7 get a peal of laughter out of each.

Cat Cora is back in Jackson Tuesday to help launch Mississippi Culanthropy, targeted as an annual event with nationally known chefs that’ll raise money for the Alma O. Brothers and Dr. Virginia Lee Cora Endowed Scholarship in Nursing. The scholarship is named, too, for her late grandmother, a former Army nurse.

“My mom’s a really strong woman,” Cat said, instilling in her the spirit to grab the brass ring. “I definitely see a lot of me in her.

“These are the things that we do . nurturing, caretaking, bringing comfort to people. So, yeah, it’s pretty fascinating.”

Virginia Lee Cora’s nearly 50 year career and decades as a clinician and professor played an instrumental role in nursing in the state, teaching nurses and leaders in the profession, as well as helping develop a statewide consortium for advanced education in geriatric and psychiatric mental health nursing specialties.

Her nursing education includes a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees from the University of Mississippi School of Nursing, a master’s from Mississippi University for Women and a doctorate from the University Air Jordan 20s of Alabama at Birmingham.

“I’m passionate about nursing, and Cathy’s KOBE 9 passionate about the culinary arts,” Virginia Lee Cora said. “I want to be hands on with the patient, and Cathy wants to be hands on in the kitchen. . When you visit her at home, I see her doing a lot of the things Air Jordan 12s with family that I did with patients it’s that nurturing, caring trait that’s intimate to being a good nurse or a good chef.”

Cat Cora credited her mother and grandmother with imparting lessons of self reliance, “really follow your dreams and not to feel like you have to step aside for somebody, or be demure or ‘Oh shucks, I can’t go do that because I’m a woman.’ It was never like that.”

Her grandmother’s history in the military as a nurse, her mom’s profession and pursuit of her doctorate, “and then they just proved by example,” she said, “priceless lessons on how to be a success inside and out.”

Virginia Lee was a working mom role model, passionate about her work while juggling career and family a gap she had to bridge since her own stayed home (she’d had to resign her commission upon marriage in 1929).

Cat recalled tea parties and cookie baking as early as age 5 or 6; she continued cooking with her mom, grandmother and dad, learning marinating meats and grilling from him and baking and global cooking from them, drawing on military family travels and their Greek heritage.

One memory can’t be scraped clear: her dad’s love of crispy toast and Cat’s reputation for going too far. Her dad loved toast, and “my kids are the same way now.