Mom’s Way

A son remembers that nobody did collards and cornbread better

By Tom Allen

My mother did not fancy herself a cook. Cooks were known for their, well, cooking. When I grew up, cooks were women. I don’t recall hearing a man referred to as “a good cook” even though some were good at cooking — fried fish or barbecued chicken. I guess Hubert Byrd was a cook, probably a good cook. He owned Sleepy’s Grill, in our community, and Lord, he could cook — hamburgers and hot dogs and the best chili.

In the rural culture of my childhood, cooks were women you paid to bake a 12-layer chocolate cake at Christmas or fix a pot of chicken pastry (pastry, not dumplin’s) because pastry was hard to make. There was always something on a cook’s stove — cold biscuits, fried applejacks, crispy fatback. Mom never paid anyone to cook anything. If she couldn’t cook it, we didn’t eat it.

Some cooks worked outside the home — schoolteachers, nurses, mill hands. Regardless of employment, for some, cooking was a side hustle, a second or, perhaps, only stream of income. Most cooks, like good beauticians, were extroverts, people-persons, so that chocolate cake or pot of pastry came with 30 minutes of conversation, the catching-up kind of conversation, not gossip. Cooks don’t gossip. Might lose a customer.

Cooks liked to cook. Mom cooked, not for enjoyment or for money, but out of necessity. We had to eat. Nevertheless, Mom was a good cook, or maybe I should say, she cooked good, at least I thought she did.

Mom baked, which comes under the umbrella of “cooking,” but only two things — coconut chess pie and peach cobbler. That pie was her go-to, year-round dessert. If someone had a baby, a hysterectomy, divorced or died, Mom delivered a coconut pie. Peach cobbler, made with canned peaches (the slippery, cling kind), was a summer dish, although canned peaches are on the shelves year-round. Two years ago, when she died, I included a copy of her handwritten cobbler recipe in the service bulletin. Folks smiled as they shared stories of pies and cobblers that accompanied her support and sympathy.

But my favorite meal Mom cooked was a Southern staple, as indigenous as “Dixie” or a “Bless your heart.” I didn’t miss the combo until I left home for college. Absence, I learned, affects the stomach as much as the heart. Her collards and cornbread filled the void; that combo was my only request when I came home, regardless of the season, since Mom cooked and froze the greens for future consumption.

Collards, those dark green, loose-leaf cultivars, are a fall crop, made sweeter by nip of a first frost. My dad sowed seed in late summer, then thinned and nurtured each plant. By November, he harvested the massive leaves for Mom to cook down in a pot of water, seasoned with fatback or bacon grease. No onion, garlic or red pepper flakes. Perhaps a sprinkle of sugar. Mom’s collards, unlike others I’ve eaten, were chopped fine, to the point you could eat them with a spoon. Collards were a traditional side at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but were just as good thawed and reheated during spring break or with corn and butterbeans from Dad’s July garden.

Collards cooking have an unforgettable smell — pungent, foul. A saucer of cider vinegar or a scented candle toned down but never dispelled the aroma. But that smell was a small price to pay for a plate of pure goodness.

Cornbread was the essential accompaniment. Mom fried her simple version in lard, later canola oil. The batter — Old Mill of Guilford cornmeal, scant water, pinch of sugar, pinch of salt — was dropped by spoonfuls into an iron skillet, where it cooked up, thin and crispy. “Lacy cornbread” she called it. Leftover pones sat on the stove, a paper towel underneath to soak up any grease. Sweet tea completed the meal. Hard to come by in Kentucky, where I attended seminary.

Two years ago, we ate the last package of Mom’s frozen collards. Mother’s Day without her still falls bittersweet. What I wouldn’t give for a plate of collards, lacy cornbread, and her strong, brewed tea, yet I will forever cherish memories of a bitter green made savory and sweet by one who cooked but most of all, was simply . . . good.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

Almanac

By Ash Alder

The world’s favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May.— Edwin Way Teale

May and the heart sings of somersaults, cartwheels across the lawn, dandelions tucked behind the ears of children. 

May is a month of sweetness.

The pick-your-own-strawberries, soft-spring-rain, butterflies-in-the-garden kind of sweetness.

And magnolia-blossoms-for-Mama.

In the garden: snow peas, fennel, broccoli, kale.

In the kitchen: bearded iris in a pail.

May is a month for sweethearts — and dancing.

Dancing round maypoles, dancing round in circles, dancing round the Beltane fire.

The first maypoles were made of hawthorn, a mystical tree which the ancient Celts believed could heal a broken heart.

Breathe in spring and feel your heart somersault, hopscotch, send a flurry of dandelion seeds whirling as it cartwheels through a field of sweetness.

Gifts for Mama

Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, May 13. I think of the hundred-year-old ferns in my grandmother’s sunroom, the ones that belonged to her florist mother, and how love, when nurtured, grows and grows.

A few seeds of inspiration for the beloved matriarch in your life:

Sprig of dogwood.

Pickled magnolia petals.

Lemon basil.

Bulbs for the garden: dahlias,
      wild ginger,

climbing lily.

Stepping stones.

Wildflower crown.

Peach, pear or nectarine tree.

Basketful of dandelion (for wine).

Eternal love.

The Full Flower Moon rises on Tuesday, May 29. Also called Mother’s Moon, Milk Moon and Corn Planting Moon, this month’s moon illuminates the whitetail fawns, wide-eyed owlets, wildflowers everywhere.

According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, the best days for planting above-ground crops this month are May 18, 19, and 26–28. Plant below-ground crops May 9 or 10.

Plan now for July sweet corn on the grill.

Pickled Magnolia Flowers

Try this to add a side of whimsy to your spring salad.

Ingredients

One pound fresh young magnolia flowers

1 1/2 cups rice vinegar

One cup of sugar

One teaspoon of salt

Directions

Wash and dry petals, then put them in a sterilized jar with salt.

Mix rice vinegar and sugar in pan, then bring to boil.

Pour hot vinegar and sugar mixture over flowers. Allow to cool, then cap the jar.

Spring — an experience in immortality.— Henry D. Thoreau

 

Flower Power

The essence of good scents

By Karen Frye

Flowers have a way of making our hearts feel something sweet and wonderful, but there is a special healing power they can bring to your life, too.

Decades ago a prominent British physician, Dr. Edward Bach, believed disease was the manifestation of negative states of mind, a disharmony between a person’s physical and mental states. He observed that worry, anxiety, impatience and unforgiveness depleted a patient’s vitality so much that the body lost its resistance and became more vulnerable to disease.

Dr. Bach closed his practice, left his home in London and spent the rest of his life traveling throughout England in a search for curative plants. He discovered 38 remedies, one from water, the others from flowering plants and trees. Today, more than ever, the connection of the mind and the body are well recognized and the research continues to grow.

Flower remedies are made simply by transferring the essence of the flower into liquid — usually water — by steeping the petals or leaves. Each flower or plant has a specific healing effect. The essences are subtle but, taken regularly, can have a positive impact on our consciousness. The effect of the remedies is not to suppress negative attitudes but to transform them into positive ones, stimulating the potential for self-healing. There are remedies to help release guilt and shame, increase self-esteem, stimulate creativity, become more balanced and grounded. The purpose of the essences is to support the immune system by relieving depression, anxiety and other trauma that weakens the body. It is important to note that they are not a replacement for traditional medical treatment, but work in conjunction with modern medicine. They are gentle and safe and have no side effects. All ages can use them.

In addition to the 38 individual essences, 39th, is Rescue Remedy, is a combination of five flower essences: impatiens, star-of-Bethlehem, cherry plum, rockrose and clematis. This is the first-aid remedy for sudden shock, an accident, a family upset, a stressful event like an exam or an interview, going on stage or giving a speech. One of the single flower remedies, sweet chestnut, is for agonizing mental anguish, total exhaustion, feeling the future is hopeless. Another flower, honeysuckle, helps the bereaved.

The work of Dr. Bach, who died in his sleep in September 1936 shortly after his 50th birthday, lives on with the help of his friends and family. People all over the world use Bach Flower Remedies. His purpose in life was to find what he knew nature had to offer us. There are now hundreds of remedies identified and studied to assist in just about any mental or emotional condition that hinders health. Healthy mind, healthy body. PS

Karen Frye is the owner and founder of Nature’s Own and teaches yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio.

The Dash of Life

Savoring time between the beginning and the inevitable

By Jim Dodson

At the beginning of Episode Two of my favorite British TV program of the moment, a charming series called Delicious, the central character, a roguish head chef, speaking from his grave in a Cornwall churchyard, recalls a famous poet’s observation about the symbolism of markings in stone.

“On a gravestone you see two dates — a beginning and an end, with a tiny dash in between. That dash represents everything you’ve ever done. Everywhere you’ve ever been. Every breath kiss or meal. It all boils down to just one little dash. . .”

As a chronic wanderer of old burying grounds and admirer of witty epitaphs, I learned years ago that burying stones “speak,” telling tales and offering nuggets of wisdom to those willing to listen. 

Most of us, however, are living in a time when daily life seems like a frantic dash from one place to the next. With work ruled by the tyranny of deadlines and calendar books, and private time invaded by social media and the clamors of an info-addicted world, it is often not until one reaches a certain age or experiences some kind of unexpected drama that the need to pause and reflect upon one’s own mortality — the meaning of the dash — becomes clear.

One year ago this month, I had my dodgy gall bladder removed. Frankly, I wasn’t sorry to see it go. The blessed little thing had been bugging me for years. At the same time, I owe that mysterious little organ a genuine debt of gratitude because in the course of a common preparatory scan, a small growth near my lower intestines was detected. It was nipped out by artful surgical procedure, revealing itself upon analysis to be a slow-growing tumor. Fortunately, the prognosis is excellent. There is only a four-percent probability of recurrence, which means no follow-up therapy is required for the time being.

Life is full of verdicts, large and small. Needless to say, I was relieved by this one and, to be blunt, awakened by it. But for a chance discovery, things could easily have gone a very different direction, as I’d enjoyed the kind of good health one might easily take for granted. In short, I was lucky to have had that aching gall bladder.   

But mortality is full of wake-up calls and epiphanies. Wise souls take notice of the changing landscape around them, and sometimes within.   

On one hand, I was powerfully reminded of the brevity of my time on this Earth, and on the other, comforted by the fact that I had excellent role models for aging smartly and — begging to differ with poet Dylan Thomas — going gently into that good night. Both my parents had their own run-ins with the dreaded C-word at about my age but never complained and went on to live astonishingly full and happy lives for the next two decades.

Their dashes, in other words, were both robust and well-lived till the end, full of gardens and grandkids, travel and exploration, making new memories and doing good work, making friends and keeping faith in the sustaining power of human and divine love. My old man worked until he was 80 and moderated the men’s Sunday School class at our church for almost a quarter of a century. My Southern mama cooked every week for the church feeding program and worked with homeless families. During the last two decades of their lives, they went to movies and took walks like old lovers, and snuck off to the hills for private weekends away. I took to kidding them that they were behaving like irresponsible teenagers.

More important, when their “Time” finally arrived, their “dash” expired its length — I was fortunate to sit with both at their bedsides as they slipped the bonds of this Earth. Nothing was left unspoken, and they displayed no fear whatsoever about the end of their days or the adventure that lay ahead. Sages of every faith tradition hold that human beings tend to pass away as they have lived their lives.

My father’s final words on a sleety March evening were, “Don’t worry. It will be fine in the morning. Go kiss your babies.”  Sure enough, the sun came out at dawn, birthing a beautiful spring day. And I did as instructed.

On a summer afternoon four years later, while sharing a glass of wine on the terrace of her favorite seaside restaurant in Maine, I remarked to my mom that she must really miss my father. She simply smiled. “Of course I do, Honey. But don’t worry. I’ll see him very soon.”

A week or so later, she suffered a stroke and was talking about her grandchildren as her nurse in the ICU changed her sheets moments after I left her. “Your mom’s heart monitor suddenly went flat and I looked over at her,” she told me later. “Her eyes were closed and she was smiling. I’ve never seen a more peaceful passing.”

Every now and then I stop by the simply dated gravestones of my folks in a beautiful cemetery not far from our house, just to say hello  — and thanks for the guidance. 

That said, a surprising number of friends my age — I recently turned 65, though I don’t feel anywhere close to that — confess amazement over how rapidly their lives are passing, how quickly their days seem to have vanished down the rabbit hole of time. Perhaps they hear the clock of the world in their inner ear. “Is it already Monday again?” quips our dear old pal Susan with a husky laugh. She walks with my wife and me every morning at five, as nature and the neighborhood are both just stirring.

Susan’s question is more of an amused observation about the speed of life than a complaint about its brevity. She teaches special-needs minority kids in one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of the city. And though she herself cracked 65 a few month ahead of me, her bounteous enthusiasm, creativity and passion for doing good work and making a difference in a small person’s life are flat-out palpable. She radiates joy and an infectious curiosity about what lies ahead — proof of Poor Richard’s admonition that a long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.

As for my part, the older I get, the slower I plan to walk. Part of the reason is creaky knees. As the tortoise proved, slow and steady wins the race — if this life is a race at all. 

The other reason for slowing down my dashing life is to see more of the passing landscape. Not long ago, my wife and I began “training” for a walk across Italy from Lucca to Rome this coming September with 50 or so other pilgrims from our church.

During the weekly “practice” hikes around the city at dusk, which are really just a lovely excuse to socialize and drink good wine afterwards, I am invariably somewhere at the rear of the pack, ambling along at my own pace, the aforementioned knees gently complaining with every step, but happy to follow where the others lead. This is a trick I learned early in life, for I’ve long been something of a solitary traveler, taking my own sweet time to get wherever I’m going.

As the second son of an itinerate newspaperman who hauled his family all over the deep South during some of the region’s most turbulent years, I experienced a decidedly solitary boyhood, exploring the woods and fields largely on my own or reading books on a rainy porch. Occasionally I’d check out historic graveyards, battlegrounds and Indian burial mounds with my older brother and father. Dick and I both became Eagle Scouts but were never too keen on the group dynamic. We preferred going our own ways at our own rhythm.

As we passed through one of the city’s older neighborhoods on our practice hike the other evening, my bride — chatting pleasantly with other pilgrims as she motored by her slow-footed husband — glanced around and remarked, “You know, I’ve never seen the city from this angle before. It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”

Indeed it was, and is.

As the sun set, her comment made me think about how slowly I plan
to walk across Tuscany this summer, taking in all I can before my “dash” runs out.

Emily Webb Gibb’s ’s haunting farewell speech from Thornton Wilder’s poignant play Our Town was also suddenly in my head.

Gibbs is the young heroine who passes away in childbirth and looks tearfully back on a wonderful life and family she fears she may have taken for granted, as the stage manager leads her to join the other spirits in the village cemetery.

“. . . They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? . . . I love you all, everything. I can’t look at everything hard enough. It goes so fast. . . . We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back — up the hill — to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye, world. . . Good-bye, Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths and sleeping and waking up. Oh, Earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”

May is a lovely time to wander a churchyard, I find. The Earth is in bloom and old stones speak of the need not to dash too quickly through the journey.

Contact Editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com.