Whenever I think of my mom for the most part I tend to think of food. If our hips could tell, she loved food just as much as I and comically so. How she'd laugh until the walls and pantries vibrated when I fried my first pan of chicken around the tender age of fourteen to sixteen years old perhaps. Every piece turned out so golden brown and perfectly crisp and it was all so beautiful and smelled so good. But, when everyone bit into their serving, it was like a bloody massacre in their mouths. Until this day, I do not fry food.
While I am removing the potatoes from my plates today along with all the heavy starches, the butter rolls, the sweets and all the cakes and pies, I am never too far removed from what held us up and together as a family and it was often found in the kitchen over her stove and her olive green double dutch oven. What joy stood there in that linoleum tiled space when the front door to the foyer never stayed locked or closed, inviting any neighbors, friends or family, whether auntie, uncle, cousin or play cousin to come inside for a bowl of turnip greens with real turnips or a plate of liver and rice, smothered in onions and gravy.
I have tried and failed to no avail to make this onion gravy I remember hating so vehemently as a child. I can capture the taste, but the consistency's off, quite thicker than hers which I now love and crave. As I've gotten older my taste buds have surely changed. Icky stuff like boiled okra is not the "witches nose" sitting on my plate at the kiddie table anymore, but it is one of the most beautiful blossoming plants I have ever seen. With just a little salt and pepper, it is also one of the tastiest and was one of my mom's staples, too.
Although Christmas is by far my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving is when my sister and I try to raise the dead just to remember how much sage Momma would use in her cornbread dressing. Last Thanksgiving, I was reminded how she would pull out that cast iron skillet after it sat through the whole year unused, all beat up, bowed over in the back of the cabinet, under all the shiny new non-stick pans totally busted, disgusted and rusted. Why she would want to cook in that skillet was unbeknownst to me until I'd learn a wonder, something that still amazes me in my kitchen today.
Although that old skillet would seldom be used, sitting under the cabinet to just seemingly collect rust, Momma would just break out the oil and rub it all over then, lo and behold her dressing and all of Thanksgiving, it was already done.
That Thanksgiving when my sister burnt the whole pot of collard greens because I somehow fell asleep, after becomimg frustrated with myself for putting too much oil in the cornbread, my then eight year old nephew ended up joining in our "Little Debbie Downer" parade. After smelling burnt collards (his favorite by the way), he marched into the kitchen like the food police just to stop and offer up his two little cents, "This is the worst Thanksgiving ever!"
Although asleep, it didn't take me long to open one eye and retort on the LORD's High and Holy Turkey Day, "Don't you dare little boy, within the eight little bitty years that you have lived plus all of your life ever dare because although you didn't get to know your Granny JJ. . .
THEE OIL was what made her cornbread the best anyone that ever knew her has ever had and ever will have!"
So, my sister went ahead and put the cornbread in the oven. Then, lo and behold - Momma's Cornbread Dressing. . .
BREAD OF HEAVEN SENT DOWN FROM GLORY!
Jocelyn
Prayer: LORD, help us to remember You in these fires of life. Like You were with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, be Thou even closer to us ¹. As the Fourth Man in the fire, even with us in the fourth watch of the storm tossed night, help us withstand the flames and the floods ². We as Your children become impatient at times. But, like the uncooked chicken I fried for momma as a young girl, You teach us that beyond the crispy and great smelling exterior, You are working deep down on the inside. Help us to be still and wait patiently as the oil goes to work.
Our Balm in Gilead and Fragrant Amen
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