an accidental delight

Not just cornbread in a cast iron pan—but a heart! And perfectly centered.

Back in the day, starting out, a new bride needed the set of three iron skillets. You had to learn seasoning, which was pretty troublesome. Long years later, a cousin would tell me he threw his skillets in the dishwasher.

I was stunned. But the seasoning...

He just laughed. He'd season them all over again.

My idea of seasoning at that time still resonated with ancient flavours, melding into the whole. Of skillets that had been handed down from mother to daughter several generations over and still having the seasoning carried down redolent with presence...

What I do not know about seasoning—then, now—remains. I created my home with the stuff of legends. With my mother's mental illness (as much as her own creative spirit), the ways of home-making did not rule the day.

For me, it was like an ideal at which to aim—or a hope, made larger by the absence of essential. Myth, perhaps—life set into story.

Some sense, too, yet remaining, of playing house. As long as I am playing house (rather than properly and completely owning house-keeping as a necessity), I can be happy. Otherwise, you will not find me in the kitchen...

Somewhere along the way, I found a set of pans and dutch ovens (my kids were all but grown then, and chaos was firmly entrenched in all that we were) that were also cast iron.

I also bought the piece to make cornsticks—and the one for muffins.

Sweet peas heated from the can in the small pan were delectable.

It may be that my love of cast iron goes back to a story Mama told. A huge dutch oven had belonged to her grandmother's grandmother, who had brought it over from Scotland.

But my great-grandfather had done something with it I won't repeat.

All of it, to be sure, likely the stuff of fancy. So many things had belonged to that same woman...

Likely none of them had. The great old dutch oven did exist. But its provenance was less certain, and it disappeared anyway, long before my childhood did, became a longed-for that new-bought cast iron could not ever be, save long generations after.

I don't think my daughter does cast iron.

But the dutch oven became like a beacon for me—in my broken home, perhaps cast iron would give that invisible something we all seek in family...

I see I stray now from that accidental delight into tales told.

Along the way of divorcing and moving to an apartment, I let go of all but the three skillets. I remember giving them away to a woman who stopped by to look at something I had most regretfully put out for the trash, and in conversation, I listed the things I was needing to let go.

Having so little now, I can just imagine how magical it must have been to meet someone getting rid of so many treasures—.

Don't have room for them in the apartment where I live now but I begin to think that, perhaps a piece at a time, some of the smaller cast iron pieces might be nice to have again. They are troublesome to keep up with, and sometimes have to be seasoned again.

But I miss them.

(It may be, perhaps, that I saved the muffin piece and that it hides in the back recesses of my cabinets or storage place.

Sounds like a good time to go digging....)

A single woman now, I tend to make cornbread (those rare instances now when I do) in the smallest of the three, but this one was made in the middle size. I don't know where the heart came from, as I made the recipe like I always do, halfing the recipe and adding just a touch of extra corn meal (without the flour that the mixes include).

To be sure, I forgot to half the milk, then had to add more mixed meal and flour. But I just poured it from the bag without measuring and, even though it was too soupy, shoved it in the hot oven figuring I'd just turn the heat up a bit and cook it until it was done.

And it kissed me back with this sweet heart!

I ate it with a quinoa and rice dish that had kidney beans (I prefer the dark red), corn (hand-sheared from the husk), lime and the Rotel tomato-pepper mix...

And sides of freshly sliced cucumber (with apple cider vinegar and dill) and spinach (cooked down just enough in water then buttered and a chopped green onion added)...

I have also returned to drinking tea. I keep the tea bags in the fridge because of the rats and mice that like to visit, here and there. I rub the leaves between my palms for a minute or two while the water heats.

Then make sure to let it steep anywhere from ten to twenty minutes, to get a good flavour.

A delightful meal, for all that the special heart did have to be turned upside down to get it out of the pan, then eaten...

But I gave thanks to God for its delights, accidental and otherwise, as I took the first bite of spinach...