Hurricane, cancer & an attack couldn't keep this woman down, now she's serving sliders in York

Kimberly Jackson beat thyroid cancer in 2004, and lost most of her belongings after Hurricane Katrina destroyed her section of New Orleans in 2005, but neither of those compare to an incident in April 2016.

As an educator specializing in tough school districts, the situation was one she’d dealt with before.

Jackson was an assistant principal in a Washington, D.C.-area elementary school and broke up an argument between two students. After placing one child in a room, she returned to the room and saw that child arguing with another student. During that argument, one child reached around her and slapped the second child in the face.

Jackson doesn’t remember much of what happened next. In an instant, the second boy went “through” Jackson to get the first, hitting Jackson in the process.

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“It felt like a baseball bat had been taken to the side of my head,” Jackson said. “The next thing I know, there’s someone pulling the other child away and I was in a lot of pain.”

The impact damaged Jackson’s left occipital nerve. The nerve starts at the base of the neck and spans the entire side of the head, and, when damaged, the body’s muscles lock up around the nerve to protect it, making the pain even worse.

The pain left Jackson bedridden for months – not because of doctor’s orders, but because the pain was crippling, Jackson said. Opting against opioid pain medication, she was forced to find other ways to take weight and pressure off the nerve. Eight months after the injury and still bedridden, she opted for a breast reduction and shaved her head to help relieve the stress.

Jackson was out of work for more than a year, and the ordeal took more from her than her hair and part of her breasts – it sapped her pride. Hair is a big deal in the African-American community, she said, so to not have any was a struggle. She couldn’t work, so she and her twin sons had to go to the food bank to eat.

“I lost everything in Katrina, and here I’m losing everything all over again,” Jackson said. “I went from being a strong, independent woman to not (being one).”

She lost the ability to cook, too. Cooking was her favorite pastime, often trying different recipes and cooking for church functions.

“I love to do something that’s completely unexpected,” Jackson said. “Sometimes, it was, ‘let me see if I can get a reaction from my friends for creating these things.’”

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But even though she was laid up, Jackson wasn't giving up, and she used cooking to get through the pain.

She taught her twin sons, Zion and Jordan, 16 at the time, how to cook. They started easy with fajitas, then soon graduated to hamburgers and chicken. The boys would cook up meals in the kitchen as Jackson gave orders from her bed, running samples to their mother while she recovered, Jackson said.

Jackson always stayed positive and pushed herself physically by taking little walks around the house and, eventually, the apartment complex they were living in.

“You have to speak what you want into existence,” Jackson said of her motivation. “I said, ‘If I get past this, then I’m going to do this, then this.”

Jackson left education for good in March. Soon after, she applied for and received a spot in York’s Taste Test Restaurant Incubator. Her concept, Southern Slider Bar, will appear in the incubator’s café through June.

Check out the food at Southern Slider Bar in the gallery below. Story continues below the gallery.

Southern Slider Bar, and its unexpected blends of styles, all come from Jackson, who has not had any formal culinary training. She was self-taught and used experiences like making new meals out of whatever the food bank gave her to push her boundaries.

“When you go to the food bank, you don’t get to pick what you want, you just get a box of stuff,” Jackson said. “(I would think), ‘What can I do with this box of stuff to make it feel like before I was sick? What great things can I create out of what I have?’”

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Southern Slider Bar meshes a bit of everything – healthy and not, vegan-friendly and meat lovers. She cooks up small hamburgers – sliders – and puts her own take on them, such as the Gut Buster, a slider with mac and cheese, pepper jack cheese, bacon mayo, crispy onions, pickles and lettuce.

There are also salads such as the summer berry salad, with three kinds of fresh berries, and loaded fries with pulled pork.

While Jackson still experiences some pain from the injury, she still has Zion and Jordan with her helping at the slider bar. She continues to push forward through whatever life throws at her – cancer, hurricanes and damaged nerves be damned.

“You tell yourself, ‘I may not have control over my destiny at this moment, but I will, and this is how I’m going to do it,’” Jackson said.

If you go…

What: Southern Slider Bar at Taste Test

Where: 101 S. Duke St., York

When: June 8-30, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

More information: www.tastetestyork.com

Anthony J. Machcinski is the food reporter for the York Daily Record. Follow him on Facebook, @ChinskiTweets on Twitter or email him at amachcinski@ydr.com.