Sometimes Late At Night....

Sometimes late at night, when all the world (or at least my little corner of it) is fast asleep, I tiptoe to the kitchen...and make cornbread.

There! The secret is out. I am a late night cornbread baker...and subsequent eater.

Cornbread ties me to my home. It helps anchor my overwhelmed mind in the solid soil of my childhood memories. It stakes me to the land of my birth, to the ties that bind, to the warm shadows of my past. My Aunt Nell made cornbread. My Uncle Nate ate cornbread. My brothers consumed it for dinner and supper and I learned to eat it sitting at the table with all of them, legs dangling off the chair pulled up to an oversized plate, a tall glass of tea and a plate of cornbread, turned upside down.

Cornbread, soft, moist, crunchy on the outside if it is done just right. Slathered with butter, or syrup if you know what is really good. Cornbread, a staple at the table, every meal but breakfast. Cornbread heaped with beans, or chicken, or made into a the most sumptuous dressing on Sundays and Thanksgiving.

So, often on nights like this one, when I am tired and overwhelmed by the busyness of my life, I creep into the freshly cleaned kitchen, pull out my great grandmother's mixing bowl (reserved only for baking biscuits and cornbread) and start combining corn meal and eggs and milk and butter. The real butter, not the fake stuff. I break out the cast iron skillet and melt the shortening. Pour in the creamy mixture and wait. Twenty minutes most nights, and I am comforted by the corny smell, the browned bottom of the bread as it is flipped out onto a plate, upside down. I cut it into triangles and suddenly, as if in a time machine blasting backward years...I am home. Sitting at the table, legs too short to touch the floor, filling my plate with cornbread, tasting the crumbly goodness as I listen to all those people I love tell tales around my aunt's dining table. Home. Cornbread takes me home...everytime.