Gratitude: Cornbread, Regardless of the Season

Here's the cornbread: Hot, sweet smelling and YUM!

Today, I am grateful for cornbread.

This gratitude would have spread to biscuits, but for two intruding facts: I'm not supposed to eat biscuits, and Kroger doesn't make its wondrous, big, tasty biscuits any longer. They were the best I ever ate, my mother's notwithstanding (and even if we do withstand them, Kroger's were better). Sorry, Mom. I once ordered a dozen from Kroger for Thanksgiving breakfast. It was the hit of the meal.

As I write this, a square iron skillet of cornbread is in the oven, 425 degrees, 20 minutes. The skillet has melted bacon fat in the bottom of it. There's a photo above that I took when I finished writing.

When I was a kid--a poor kid--Mom made cornbread and biscuits because they were cheap. We kids all wanted Rainbow white bread because the other kids had it and it signalled middle class. I'm not sure if we liked it, but that wasn't the point. Cornbread and biscuits told us we were poor. The smell of fresh bread told our friends Mom was in the kitchen and that they'd better hurry over or they'd miss her cooking. They loved her soul food.

It's probably too hot today for cornbread, but I bought some buttermilk yesterday and that made me Jones for cornbread and buttermilk, the soul food of the gods.