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Born Sharon Green December 2, 1955 to 21 year olds Norma Williams and Willie Green. On December 19, 1955 Willie a military police officer with the US Armed Forces was shot in his back and killed at Fort Dix New Jersey. This made her mother Norma a single parent. That tragedy, made the grandmothers of the infant rally around her. Her maternal grandmother, Edna Leona Williams was a supervisor of the dietary kitchen at Joint Disease Hospital in Harlem, New York. Her paternal grandmother Fannie Mae Green was a domestic working for a wealthy Caucasian family in Riverdale New York. With her mother constantly working, and still being very young, Sharon's time was divided between the two grandmothers. Under her grandmothers tutelage Sharon was taught the basics of table etiquette, presentation and food preparation. From the age of 12 - 16 Sharon worked in the dietary kitchen of Joint Disease Hospital during every school brake. The ladies learned that Sharon had a talent for cooking and tried to steer her in the direction of culinary arts. Being a headstrong teenager, Sharon dismissed the ladies advice and enrolled in Central Commercial Hospital aka Norman Thomas in Manhattan. Sharon graduated in 1973 with honors in stenography and typing. Although working in Corporate America for the next 21 years Sharon's passion still remained in the culinary field. In 1994 along with her husband Henri and her two daughters, Allison and Ashley, they moved from Harlem, New York to their first home in Staten Island, New York. It was then Sharon realized her commute to work went from 20 minutes to 2 hours. Sharon had to come up with a nutritious meal for her family to have in her absence. Along with her maternal grandmother, and after six months of trial and error the "Brunch Biscuit" was born. When Corinne Singleton (no relation) a neighbor fell ill, Sharon had Nicole, Corinne's daughter take her mother something to eat. After 20 minutes, Nicole came back to Sharon's house excitedly yelling, my mother needs to see you now!!! Running next door not knowing what to find, Corinne started by telling Sharon that she is one of the best cooks she knows and that she has never tasted anything like those "biscuits". Corinne adamantly stated that Sharon should put the biscuits on the market. After talking with her husband Henri, Sharon packaged the savory delicacies and handed them out on the campus of Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. Depending on who tells the story approximately two weeks after handing out the biscuits there was a line at the Bursars Office. One of Sharon's co-workers made the comment, "why is there a line at the office?" "These people don't pay their tuition on time". Much to Sharon's surprise, they weren't there to pay their tuition, but to find out how to get more biscuits. The biscuits were an immediate hit. After leaving FIT, Sharon went to work as an executive secretary at Walter & Samuels Real Estate company on Park Avenue South in midtown. With Allison away at college, Sharon and her younger daughter Ashley made biscuits at night, boxed them up and Sharon took them to work with her in the morning. Sharon used her lunch hour to deliver the biscuits to various clients. She would then come back to work and finish out the day. It was then that Sharon's husband Henri declared that he wasn't going to buy another stove for her to destroy. She had already had demolished two stoves at that point making biscuits. Sharon promised herself that when she got fired from that job (which was inevitable) that she would finally follow her grandmother's vision for her and pursue her passion in the culinary field. Sharon opened Staten Islands premiere southern cuisine restaurant "Singlelicious" in 2004. It was at Singlelicious where Sharon met Frances Wilson-Nollez. Mrs. Nollez was so taken by Sharon's food that she entered her in Oprah's Next Big Idea. Although Sharon wasn't happy that she had been entered into the contest, Mrs. Nollez knew better. Sharon was chosen out of over 6,000 contestants in the country, the only African American and the only contestant with a food product to showcase on the Oprah Winfrey show in May 2007. |
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SHARON SINGLETON