Food Surprise!

I grew up eating homegrown vegetables, meats butchered locally, and home cooked meals made from scratch. Some people look back on this type of eating and think it to be poor people’s food or something they are glad they never have to eat again. Obviously, those who see it this way didn’t have the types of food or the cooks we had. My Granny Mac along with my mom were recognized as top shelf cooks in our area. At our Church homecoming special meals people who elbow each other to get to Granny Mac’s cornbread dressing or my mom’s homemade dumplings. We may not have had a lot of things but we always had good quality meals because of the love that went into making them.

And, that’s exactly the ingredient Granny Mac used to talk about. She always said that good cooking starts with caring. Her reward came when those she loved sat down and gobbled up her many hours of hard labor. She would actually stand and watch us all eat before she ever sat down herself. That wouldn’t work in today’s world where equality reigns but in Granny’s world she received the blessing as she knew she had poured her best into making the meals she prepared something special.

I also have the extra special blessing of having a wife who was brought up in the same tradition and she has become our queen of the kitchen to me and our boys, their wives, and their children, our grandchildren. What’s her secret? The same one Granny Mac had: CARING! How does it show itself? Getting up at 4:30 a.m., to prepare each and every sumptuous dish so that at noon time when the herd shows up it will be not only a meal, but a lasting memory. I sometimes feel sorry for her but she, like my mom, her mom, and granny mac, receives the sense of satisfaction in seeing her brood enjoy the fruits of her labor.

As a senior in high school many days I would only have to go for a half day. Our school was only a few blocks away so I would walk home. On a cold wintry day I would come in the back door and the first thing to greet me was the aroma of something so wonderful it’s impossible to describe. The windows were all fogged up from the heat of the oven and there stood my granny with a big smile on her face. I would say, “Granny, what in the world have you been doing?” She would always respond, “Oh, I thought I would make you a little dinner.” Of course dinner is what we called lunch and what most folks called dinner, we called supper.

Granny had made me a small pan of homemade cornbread dressing and used my favorite link sausage cut up into rounds as the meat. She served that with some field peas and tomato and okra that had been put up in jars from last season’s canning. She also had some homemade rolls and for dessert she had made a small banana pudding. I was the only one there. She had made this feast for me! Even as a seventeen year old I knew there was something extraordinarily special about what she had done. Yes, she stood there and watched me eat, and yes I cleaned my plate because that’s what you do whenever someone has gone to such effort. Afterwards, I sat there and groaned and she smiled that unforgettable smile that only a granny has. What a memory.

Every once in a while my wife does something very similar as a surprise. When I walk in that back door that smell hits me. Suddenly it’s my granny, my mom, my mother-in-law all rolled into one as those memories of great times and great feasting flood my soul. I look on the stove top and she has prepared smothered steak in gravy, mashed potatoes, field peas, fried okra, and freshly made cornbread. Just for us? Yes, and especially just for you! What a wife and what a life! Wow! Am I blessed or what? I don’t know exactly what will be on the menu when we all get to heaven but I do know that if it’s better than this type of eating, folks, it will have to be something! Amen. More later……………..