Margaret Nash, the Woman Who Helped Make It Happen!

To celebrate Women’s Month, we cannot overlook the co-founder of Lefty’s Spices, Margaret. 

Margaret’s gift has always been cooking.  As a young girl growing up in Alabama, she would play in the dirt making the perfect mud pies and pretending to serve them to her siblings.  She always helped her mother in the kitchen and grew up knowing the importance of family gatherings at the table.

Later the entire family would move to Washington, DC where her best friend introduced and she would marry the love of her life, Walter Nash, Sr. (aka Lefty). 

The two of them were known for having friends and family for gatherings and she would always receive praises on her southern-style cooking.   She had a knack for listing the ingredients in food just by tasting a spoonful! 

She would spend most of her work life at Howard University Bookstore for 25 years before being laid off.  Heartbroken from her trial, she remembered her daughter telling her that things happen for a reason and God didn’t give her a gift of cooking for nothing.

In 1989, along with the help of Lefty’s father, they fulfilled Lefty’s dream by opening a food trailer and offering freshly cooked slow-roasted meats flavored with their signature spices and sauces.  She created recipes that Lefty’s is known for…collard greens, fried garlic cabbage, sweet potato soufflé, potato salad and so much more.

Today, they not only continue to work in a storefront restaurant but, along with their daughter, they manufacture seasonings and sauces that enhance folk’s recipes.   Lefty and Margaret knows, firsthand, food brings comfort to the table and when it’s flavorful and robust, the whole dining experience with family and friends is complete.