I enjoy baking and November kicks off my holiday baking season. First on the yummy list are pies and then we move deliciously into Christmas cookies and Yule Logs. I love it. A recent addition to our Thanksgiving table is homemade cornbread. No, I am not from the South but I lived in Florida long enough to warmly welcome grits and cornbread into my culinary world. Practice makes perfect and last week I began preparing for the essential cornbread muffins I will serve on the big turkey day. Unfortunately, when a Yankee adds cornbread to her Thanksgiving menu there are bound to be mishaps.
Batch #1 Homemade, from scratch of course, this is Miss Pat you’re talking to, and well, quite frankly, they tasted like the main ingredient was sand.
Batch #2 Careful, careful, measure carefully, level cups, no mishaps, and - Voila. Batch #2 tasted like my pillow. Clearly, I was using the wrong product.
I love our free market economy, but it can be challenging in a baking crisis. I didn’t have two, three or four cornbread muffin choices, I had four hundred choices. Do I use Cornmeal? Or Cornbread Mix? I stood for a long time in the baking section of a chain supermarket. Read carefully, don’t be hasty, don’t buy the wrong product. I am looking for Cornmeal not Mix, for Cornbread, yes muffins, and now it is a choice of white or yellow. Do I want white cornmeal or yellow cornmeal? I learned from batch #1 that I wanted fine, not coarse cornmeal. Now which store had the Gluten Free? Should I get the Mix? I was told not to use a Mix, but the Mix was Gluten Free and reading the label, it only required milk not buttermilk and no butter. The pound of butter will come later while eating. Where did I see the Mix that required milk only? Why should I be confused? Am I starting to hate the South? I’m from New York. Why am I doing this? And then, then ….. An Angel.
An Angel appears and says, “Oh. No problem. You want to use this White Cornbread Mix”. She holds up a package. “I do?” “Yes,” says the Cornbread Angel. “Where did you get that? I have been to every supermarket in town and sorry Angel, you are wrong I know I saw that brand, but it wasn’t cornbread mix it was… everything else. How do they do it? How do they make Muesli, Oatmeal, Soy Flour, Wheat Flour, Cereal? How, how?” I collapse sobbing. “There, there,” says the Cornbread Angel. “They do make it all. They make it at their special Mill. Now, dry your tears, get up and go to this store. You can get it here.” She scribbles a name on a note pad. “Did you go to this market? Here’s their number. Call them.”
How did she do that? I didn’t go there. “Oh, thank you Cornbread Angel.” Faster than a rising muffin, I raced to the recommended grocery. “It’s here! It’s here! The right product, the one that will keep me from failure and shame.” I grabbed six bags. Lordy, these are expensive, a whole bag makes only twelve muffins. Who cares? And so, I will wow them this Thanksgiving with cornbread muffins made from a Mix, Gluten Free, milk only, not buttermilk and I will serve them with honey. Happy Thanksgiving Y’all.
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