Liz's Cornbread
Measurements will be given by gestures.
A slight wheeling of the hands. Pinches of air. Cupped palms.
You will need to explain this again and again.
Equipment:
Yellow Pyrex Bowl.
Hands.
Blackened, burned out aluminum pan.
Ingredients:
This
That
Buttermilk
Mix.
illustration by Meredith Counts
Previous to this - and over 50 years -
You should have made a mark on the temperature knob of the oven.
That mark should be between 425 degrees and 450.
The reason is that’s just where it should be.
When oven is hot, wait half an hour because your sister called and she’s your sister and you love her, but that woman is an asshole.
Put several spoons of shortening in pan.
Place pan in hot oven while reminding everyone the oven is hot.
At the right moment, remove the pan. Pour batter in.
It will smell like summer time.
Incidentally, it is always summertime and you can’t wait, Jennifer, until it snows up to your asshole.
Make a salad plate:
Iceberg.
Tomato.
Pickle.
No one will touch this.
Remove cornbread.
Swear.
Spoons.
Butter knives.
Margarine.
Rap on the kitchen wall to those in the den - shave and a haircut.
Cut cornbread into large squares.
Overfeed everyone because that is love.
Butter it while it’s hot because you have to and because you have been told.