Alright. Here's cookin' with you kids ... I'm learnin' how to be a better "eyeballer" in the kitchen. I just wanted y'all to know that. Eyeballin' is an important skill, I think, something any Southern girl worth her salted grits should be good at doin'. At least, my mama's good at it, my sister can handle it, my grans are/were superior (as all grans are) and every great aunt I have/had can mess somethin' up somethin' good in the kitchen. And so it's natural that you compare your cooking skills to those of the major cooks in your clan.
(Of course, measuring properly is also important for baking as you all well know since you all bake more than I do.) I am always infinitely pleased when one of those box cakes turns out well, despite the constant ribbing I receive from my grandmother who insists that a fool can bake one of those cakes without messing it up. Really, she's nice when you get ... over the fact that she's not really nice.
As you know, Mags is still recovering (quite splendidly) and so her kitchen skills have slowly been making their way back. Thankfully, none of this has diminished her flair - I stand by the fact that nobody fries pork chops as fantastically as my Mama - although it has altered her stamina. So now she assigns me side dishes and such to handle whenever she takes breaks from the kitchen - she does NOT like to be in there at the same time as me because she says I make her nervous.
(Serious chuckles.)
I know she's nervous because there's this feeling that I've been cursed with clumsiness, but it really is just absentmindededness manifested in the physical. I know she really just doesn't want to field all my questions, because let me tell you, this is the thing that I think everybody in my family hates and have been conditioned to do so.
As a family we're not competitive cookers, really, in that there are no "cook offs." And nobody ever really badmouths anyone's cooking because no one is that terrible - the worst kind of compliment you can get is, "It could use more seasoning." (It is important to realize that seasoning does not always mean salt, but you probably knew this, too.) But no one likes questions. In my family, you cook according to your taste, to your feeling ... the beauty of cooking, if you will, is in the eye of the chef.
I won't say I'm Stevie or Ray because they are genius, but my "eyes" for cookin', well they probably have like cataracts or something ... I dunno. Again, metaphors ... wherefore art thou good ones?
Anyway, tonight, my sidedish was cornbread, featurin' the ol' staple, Jiffy. I've met people who turn their noses up at some Jiffy, sayin' that ain't real cornbread. Well let me tell you. It's real tasty (when you know how to fix it) and it's real cheap - fo'ty-nine cent a box? Shit. That's a goldmine. I'm fidna advocate cornbread erry day, for erryones - in fact, that's what they need to ship to third world countries ... but that's another ramble.
Now me, I examine this box and whip out the ol' Pyrex measurin' cup accordingly, and I follow their directions as my mom peers over my shoulder and umphs ...
I ask her what this means as I comment on the cement-like texture my mixture has taken. (One time, I was helping my dad - who loves construction work - mix some cement and he said I was doing a good job. I wondered what he'd say looking at my cornbread, and I imagined that it'd be something along the lines of encouraging a foray into brickmasonry. I do have his hands.)
The box calls for 1/3 cup of milk, but apparently making cornbread isn't paint by numbers - and I was good at paint by numbers. You see, with this cornbread, Mama informed me that her Mama had informed her that whatever you do, you don't follow the directions on that damn box. She snatches the box and throws away, leaving the kitchen shaking her head telling me to try using my head, it's just cornbread and it ain't that hard.
Here's where I'm Type A. (I am not a full-blooded Type A.) Apparently, the instructions on the box are just a means to an end, whereas I had viewed them as the friggin' Rosetta Stone, the Ten Commandments for makin' cornbread - you do a, b, c and d in such-and-such order and 30 minutes later, thou smelleth and eateth cornbread. Tasty cornbread.
But naw, you see, you add enough milk to make that stuff look like it's drowning, and then you walk away ... clean up a bit, spray the pan, add a li'l melted butter to the pan ... and you come back and see that the mix has thickened and is now ready to submit itself to the baking pan. In short, you become an artiste, an improvisationalist ... you let it go with a li'l bit of this and a li'l bit of that ...
You become Ella, Louis, Sarah Vaughn, Miles, and your cooking, all your recipes, become interpretations, capsules, and on some occasions, movements and masterpieces.
Peppering pepper, paprika, pine nuts or whatever I've watched people season, splashin' sprigs of this and that in flicks that now remind me of scat rhythms and runs ...
I am a true novice, y'all. Like the kid who doesn't know the reed has to be wet before you can blow the clarinet, the kid who has yet to figure out that the buzz your lips must make to play the trumpet is less baby-makes-airplane-noises and more you're-so-pissed-that-your-lips-purse-to-fight-the-cursing.
I am the kid who needs a practice room that is soundproof, and I am the cook that is left alone in the kitchen stirrin' and addin', stirrin' and addin' and then deciding that it looks like enough ...
Tonight - I thought of you Nikki! - we had cornbeef hash and cabbage and some delicious, crispy tasty cornbread. I feel excited and pleased, just like I felt when I could play a scale without dying from loss of breath or making the squawking noise that a friggin' seagull wouldn't even claim.
Have you had your butter today, bebbe?