At 88, Betty Bullard feels no regrets about taking a culinary shortcut or two.

She doesn’t do it always, but sometimes, frozen chopped onions will do just as well in a recipe as ones you chop — and cry over — yourself.

“Why go to all that bother if you don’t have to, or just don’t want to?” she asked.

Things like a food processor, which she says chops better than she does, come in handy these days.

After cooking for eight children, as well as owning two restaurants, Bullard is well versed in making all kinds of dishes from scratch. However, she equally delights in coming up with new, easy recipes, which allow her to mix fresh, frozen and canned ingredients for optimum flavor and convenience.

“These frozen vegetables are just as fresh as these,” straight from the produce department, Bullard said. Mixed with her homemade turkey stock, made from the carcass of her family’s Thanksgiving bird, becomes a wonderful, thick soup-turned-stew when she added in lots of fresh vegetables and a roux made of flour and milk. Served with some French bread and a green salad, her comforting meal, made on a chilly and rainy day, is complete.

Bullard has learned to make other changes, too, to make life a little easier.

“Especially living in a two story house. I’ve learned put things on the steps that I want to take upstairs. I don’t run up those stairs just to take a pen up,” she said.

Coming to Vicksburg

Born in Yazoo City on March 16, 1927, Bullard moved to Vicksburg with her husband, Nathaniel Bullard, when she was 27 and already the mother of three of her eight children.

Her husband, originally from Wheeling, W.Va., was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. They spent the first nine years of their marriage in service to the Navy, “stationed coast to coast,” she said.

When he was ready to begin his law practice, she said he researched the number of lawyers per capita in the state, and favorable numbers came up for Hattiesburg, Jackson, the Gulf Coast area and Vicksburg.

“The decision sort of made itself,” she said.

Mr. Bullard practiced law for a time, then decided to get into politics and was elected mayor of Vicksburg.

“His take home pay as mayor was $1,000 a month. I thought to myself, I’d better get busy making some money,” Bullard said. That’s when she ventured into the real estate business, buying a building, renovating it and later selling it.

“I’ve probably bought and sold a dozen pieces of real estate,” she said.

She purchased her current home on Main Street, which is the oldest home in Vicksburg, and brought it back from near dilapidation. The entire renovation only took about nine months.

Bullard has also started a couple of restaurants — one a tearoom and the other is Main Street Market Cafe. She said she started it with her son-in-law, Chris Fink. Fink and Bullard’s daughter, Sally, now operate the popular Vicksburg restaurant.

‘There’s nothing to it.’

Bullard enjoys cooking, particularly her evening meal.

“I always cook myself a very nice dinner every night,” she said. “It’s recreational. It’s creative, and I just love doing it.”

Her favorite meal includes a lamb chop.

“I don’t eat much beef, and chicken just doesn’t taste like chicken anymore,” Bullard said. “I have one loin lamb chop every night — but just one.”

She pairs her chop, which she cooks fat side down first in a non-stick pan in order to render some of the fat, then flips it over to the bone side.

“Just about when it’s ready, the news is over and I’ve had my glass of wine,” Bullard said.

She seasons the chop with only salt and pepper, and makes to go with it a mashed or baked potato, or maybe a Mississippi sweet potato.

“I think Mississippi sweet potatoes are the finest in the world,” Bullard said.

Her meal is complete with a green vegetable and a salad.

Bullard is also known for her homemade mayonnaise and her biscuits.

“There’s just nothing to it,” she said of both recipes.