I was making cornbread, again.

Back in the late 90s, when I was in grad school and living on the coast, I asked my grandmother to write down her recipe for cornbread. Her cornbread… well, it never lasted in the house. And the cornbread dressing she made. Goodness.

When I asked her to write down the recipe – so I could reproduce it in my tiny Broad St. apartment – she said “I’m not entirely sure I can; I just make it.” And with that statement, she began one of the best afternoons I ever spent with her.

In my remembering, it’s laughter and stories. Places to get good corn meal, where to get the real flour (she meant locally milled, in Columbia) and who brought what dish to Thanksgiving and Easter when.

We worked together, in her kitchen, to measure and document what she did. And that making and measuring and cooking – it’s one of my fondest memories. On the written “recipe,” there are still places where you use “1 1/4C to 1 1/2C milk… depending” or “1/3-1/2” of something. Again, depending. Depending on what, well… depending. And only years later did we figure out that by “milk,” she meant the local, farm milk. Closest equivalent? Half and half, else the bread crumbles too much.

And the teaspoon of sugar? I never knew she put sugar in the cornbread. Grandmother explained that she doesn’t add sugar, unless company is coming. Some folks expect it…. again, depending.

We sat at her kitchen table, she and I, looking at our notes and nibbling warm cornbread & fresh butter. And using those notes, she grabbed a 3×5 card and wrote out her best guidelines for Grandmother’s Corn Bread. And I’m so happy she did.

Grandmother has been gone a long time now, and much of my cooking I owe to her. I keep meaning to frame the card, but then – like much of the knowledge she gave me – I use it so often….

Shakshouka – very North African, and quite wonderful. The leftovers make a great breakfast too.