Snow and the Full Moon

What is it about being snowed-in that requires baking? I made some dreadful cornbread yesterday, when the snow first started to stick outside.

I should tell you about my cornbread fixation. As a good Southern woman, I naturally love cornbread. But I can't stop experimenting with it--trying new recipes, tweaking recipes that I know work.

Last New Year's Day, I had a cornbread tasting. Plain, made with buttermilk. Bread with cracklins. Bread with whole wheat flour and niblet corn. Bread with extra eggs to make it rich.

We had a good time. In addition to corn bread, we had black-eyed peas and collards.

Yesterday, I discovered some white corn meal in the freezer and tried out the recipe on the back of the bag. It's very cake-y and tangy.

Not bad, exactly. But not corn bread.

My favorite recipe for cornbread is called Perfect Corn Bread and it's in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that I've had since grad school.

Crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, draped with fresh butter.

Maybe I'll go make some right now.

Tsk, Tsk. Neglectful Wench

Greetings, all. And welcome to a glorious new year of Pagan gardening, cooking, eating and food preservation.

Most of us are doing our bit for Haiti relief but I really must commend one of our local vegetarian restaurants. Rosetta's in Asheville does a marvelous cauldron of soup benefit most Sunday evenings. There's an enormous cauldron on a tripod, set over a gas flame. And there's fresh cornbread.

All of this is for a donation and it is an odd and wonderful group of folks, never the same from week to week.

Last week and this week, Haiti relief was the recipient.

So it is possible to do good, eat right and have a happy tummy.

I am sorry to report that the sub-zero weather here destroyed my fall-planted greens a couple of weeks ago. And now we are having The Deluge. So my dreams of early spinach, kale, collards and lettuce are a little thin on the ground--quite literally--these days.

Still, we soldier on, don't we?

What are you cooking and/or eating these days, hmmm?