Cornbread is another one of those foods that wraps around our hearts and speaks of home.
Cornbread dressing. Or is it stuffing? Cornbread and beans. Cornbread and chili. Cornbread and Vegetable soup. Spoonbread. Mexican Spoonbread – mmm, my favorite!
Are you like me? Do you like to crumble your cornbread into your beans? Mmm. And who needs cornbread to go with something. Just get out the honey jar and enjoy the mess and the crumble. Hey, and let’s face it. Jiffy really does a pretty good job of imitating the homemade. It might be bitterly cold outside but just the thought of cornbread and fill in the blank is enough to make me feel warm on the inside.
When Susan Craft told me her story “His Eye Is On the Sparrah” mentions vegetable soup and cornbread, my mouth immediately started to water. Susan told me how her mom, upon whom the story is based, once baked cornbread and forgot a critical ingredient, making it inedible. Thinking she’d feed it to the birds, she took it outside. It was so hard she couldn’t break it into pieces and even slammed it against a tree. Susan remembers she and her siblings watched from their living room window and laughed so hard their stomachs hurt.
Anyone who cooks has had to learn to extend lots of grace to themselves. Cooking is as much an art form as it is a science. Sometimes the cook’s concentration just isn’t there and we get sloppy with measuring or so distracted we forget a key ingredient. Sometimes, as I try to explain to my husband, it’s just one of those days and there’s no good explanation for why the recipe didn’t turn out. Either that or I’m too tired to try to figure it out and tomorrow is another day. Besides, it’s just one meal among thousand that we will cook, so eat, enjoy and forget.
Some of my days are like Susan’s mom’s cornbread. They just don’t turn out. Days I’d love to feed to the birds so no one remembers. That’s why I’m glad God reminds us that His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-24). Each new day is a chance to start over again, to make new cornbread, to try again on a relationship, to work once more at loving someone as Jesus loves them.
Here’s Susan’s recipe for Cornbread.
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. sour cream
½ c. corn oil
1 tsp. salt
1 c. cream style corn
1 c. self-rising cornmeal
2 rounded tsp. baking powder
Mix ingredients. Place ½ tbsp. Crisco in 9×9 baking pan in 400°oven. When Crisco is melted, pour ingredients into hot pan and bake 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Susan’s selection, “His Eye Is On The Sparrah” tells the story of how a widow’s wooden cane saves the day for a child portraying a shepherd in his church Christmas play. We’re excited her story will join the others in the soon-to-be released anthology, Christmas Treasures: A Collectin of Short Stories.
If you like historical fiction, check out Susan’s blog, Historical Fiction, A Light In Time, at https://historicalfictionalightintime.blogspot.com
Susan F. Craft’s Revolutionary War romantic suspense, The Chamomile, won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick. Susan recently retired after a 45-year career as a communications director, editor, and proofreader. Susan wrote A Writer’s Guide to Horses, for the Long Riders’ Guild Academic Foundation, www.lrgaf.org. She married her high school sweetheart, and they have two adult children, one granddaughter, and a granddog. An admitted history nerd, she enjoys painting, singing, listening to music, and sitting on her porch watching the rabbits eat her daylilies. She has two post-Revolutionary War novels being released in 2015 by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, Laurel, on January 12, and Cassia on September 14. She is represented by Linda S. Glaz, Hartline Literary Agency.
Be sure to look for Susan’s story in the Christmas Anthology, Christmas Treasures: A Collection of Short Stories. Now available in print or on Kindle.
Now, where’s that bowl of vegetable soup?
What a fantastic post, Karen. You shared my mom’s story in a beautiful way, of days that don’t turn out and reminding us that God’s mercies are new every morning. Thank you for a lovely post.
It was a pleasure to share the story!
Great post, Karen!
I once made a loaf of French bread from scratch, carefully following the directions, only to have it turn out so that I could have used it as a doorstop. I think there was something wrong with the yeast or I hand kneaded it too long!
And I’ve had days like that too—where things didn’t work out the way I planned, no matter how hard I worked at them. I, too, am thankful that God’s mercies are new every morning. Those verses in Lamentations are some of my favorites!
What a fun story both you and Susan have shared. And such a visual of Susan’s mom bashing the cornbread against the tree with Susan and her siblings laughing. Love it!
I had to smile when I read about Susan’s mother’s cornbread. I once used cornstarch instead of powdered sugar to make frosting! Thank you for sharing Susan’s cornbread recipe, her story, and your reflection on how some days just don’t turn out well. I ordered Christmas Treasures and can’t wait to read the stories as part of my preparations for celebrating Christmas.