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From left, Aline Duck and Betty Franks talk while selling their assortment of pickles, jellies, salsa and other food Wednesday at the Vidalia Farmer’s Market. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

From left, Betty Franks assists her sister Aline Duck while selling their salsa to a customer Wednesday at the Vidalia Farmer's Market. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

Aline Duck's pickled squash sits at her stand Wednesday at the Vidalia Farmer's Market. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

(Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

From left, Aline Duck and Betty Franks talk while selling their assortment of pickles, jellies, salsa and other foods Wednesday at the Vidalia Farmer's Market. (Nicole Hester / The Natchez Democrat)

VIDALIA — Every Wednesday Betty Frank and her sister Aline Duck set up their stand at the Vidalia Farmer’s Market.

Frank has been selling her hot and mild salsa, chow-chow, pickled figs, apple butter, peach preserves and a variety of jellies for the past five years at the farmer’s market.

Duck joined her two years ago, selling her bread and butter pickles, pickled okra, dill pickles, pickled squash, corn relish, canned jalapenos and different sugar-free spreads.

This isn’t the duo’s first time working together, however.

Before working together at their farmer’s market stand the two owned a  trucking business that took them cross country.

“We’ve been all over the country,” Frank said, “It was hard work.”

The trucking business taking them all over the country was just the beginning, as the business later took the them all over the world, traveling with their husbands mainly in the Middle East.

“My husband worked in the oil fields and when we were in Egypt I taught conversation English,” Duck said.

The two returned to the Miss-Lou in 2000 and started working in the kitchen with recipes they learned as children.

“We’ve been doing this since we were kids, and we learned how to do all of this on a wood stove,” Frank said. “When you grow up the way we did, you learn all of this.”

While the two currently live next door to one another, Duck said they hardly see each other.

“Sometimes she’ll come over to my house for a cup of coffee but basically we’re confined to our kitchens when we’re working,“ Duck said, “This is nice, it does give us a chance to be together.”

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