iBelin

Sitting at the Feet of the Elders

// February 2nd, 2010 // 8 Comments » // Discipline, Faith, Lessons From Leontyne, family, storytelling

Every once in a while you have to stop and consciously admit you do not know it all and sit humbly before someone who knows more, has seen more and has done more than you. This experience is to get not only information but also inspiration.

Taking the time to listen deeply to the stories of how s/he made it to where s/he is is an invaluable use of your time. So, listen to the successes and to the failures and feast on each and every detail. Hearing about the failures and mistakes of someone who has been blessed with success gives you what you need to get up and keep pressing through your own failures. The success stories challenge you to strive to enjoy the same. Sitting at the feet of the elders challenges you to work harder and smarter.

Arrogant folk cannot sit still long enough or see the value of listening to folk who, perhaps, do not have the education or the “talents” they have. These people are foolish. Shun these people!

Put yourself in the company of people who inspire you – who know more than you. Then, work to cultivate genuine, mutual relationships with them that are enriching. Get rid of the lazy, “slovenly” and “slouchy” people around you. They are energy drainers. Moreover, you are known by the company you keep.

Whenever you feel like you are just going through the motions or that you are putting out a lot without getting a lot of returns, come out from among them and sit at the feet of the elders in your life… and be refreshed and renewed.

Grandma Albirda’s Whiskey Cake

// October 23rd, 2009 // 11 Comments » // family, storytelling

Since it’s Fall, I thought it was time to start baking. Growing up there was always a cake or pie in the house but especially in the Fall and through the holidays.

EXCURSUS

My mother is an exceptional cook and was an exceptional baker. After my parents lived in Capetown with Katie, a cook who lived in, she lost her touch. We discovered this at a huge holiday dinner with many, many guests when they had moved to Little Rock. After dinner, I went into the kitchen to help bring out the dazzling offering of cakes. We sliced the first and the knife didn’t glide through. A cook knows this does not bode well for the texture of certain cakes. One by one, through caramel, jam, coconut and pound cakes we cut to find assortments of rubber, cornbread and gelee’. She was visibly shaken. Unable to gather herself, I suggested we serve the sweet potato pies which were brought by a guest. She hasn’t rarely baked a cake since. That was 1989.

AND WE’RE BACK…
While I was in Atlanta recently I bought the ingredients and my mother and I went into the kitchen to bake Grandma Albirda’s Whiskey Cake which is rich in spices, pecans, molasses, family memories and love.

One might underestimate what is required to bring such goodness to the family table, but as I stood there examing each and every single pecan (while Mama was examining me and my work) which went into that cake to ensure there were no stray pieces of hulls or any pecans that were dry, I no longer take this deliciousness lightly.

My great-grandmother, "Birda" as her grandchildren called her, used to make these cakes every year and ship one to each of her children’s families and with them love and lessons and memories of their childhood in Vicksburg. My mother, great lover and champion of tradition that she is, continues the tradition. (She used to ship these cakes to her parents, sister and brothers.) I joined her in this endeavor so as to mitigate against any non-cakelike textures by serving as her talisman of sorts.

The cake must be made at least a month before it is to be eaten so that the Jack Daniels sugar syrup can be poured on weekly and soak in. One might argue that anything (or anyone) would be good soaked in Jack Daniels, but this cake is really delicious, rich and perfect for the holidays.

Once while we were all still living at home in Nashville, we found one of these drunk cakes in our pantry several months into a new year. This was quite possible because the always overcrowded pantry could conceal any manner of treasure (or terror). The pantry was so full of food and other items (that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else) that you could search for what you desired and another something could fall out… like the time Henry went to the pantry searching for something on a high shelf and a huge can of raw honey Daddy used in his tea crowned him right over the head and the honey anointing ran down to the ‘skirts of his garments.’

(Notice the grip on my face in the pic above. You will see the same grip on Mama’s face when she is measuring flour a little farther up.  This grip is essential to completing any task.  Toni and Henry also use this grip, though Toni will not admit it just as she won’t admit we have the same nose.)

So we found this cake which had been stored away for months and we laughed while mama wondered how it had escaped her (as though she didn’t know what a thicket that pantry was). We looked at the cake and each other all the while knowing what we’d do. We had no choice but to open and try this old drunk of a cake. We would not be Belin’s if we didn’t try to eat it!

Mama unfolded the foil first and then held up the cake still wrapped in plastic wrap and looked through for I’m not sure what. We could already smell the Jack Daniels. This had to be a good sign. Then she peeled off the cellophane to reveal a cake that looked no different from the others we had eaten during the previous holiday season. I was already holding the serrated edge knife deemed by Mama to be the only suitable knife with which to cut such a cake and any other would "butcher" the cake thereby rendering it inedible. I passed the serrated edge knife to mama. She cut into it and gave the so-far-so-good look (experienced bakers know how a cake is liable to be by the way it cuts). She looked at the slice and broke off a corner of this precious end piece. There were only two ends on this loaf cake and they had absorbed the most Jack Daniels so whomever got the ends got the happiest. Of course, I always got an end since Henry hates nuts and Toni doesn’t eat raisins they were not in the competition.

Well, the cake was fine though a little drier than at it’s peak. But, it taught us the value of Jack Daniels and sugar: if you pour enough in, you’ll last longer.

My parents are strong and vibrant and we are blessed and I’ve no doubt that Mama could have pulled it off without me. But, baking those cakes with her reminded me that at some point we all have to pick up traditions from older ones so the younger ones will be situated in their powerful history and gain strength there.

In a few weeks, we’ll open a cake and cut into it. I’m thinking Mama will remember Birda. ‘Bootsie,’ Mama’s sister Shirley has already requested one. I know this means that Mama will bake cakes for the rest of her family too. I’ll help. It’s a long process but traditions are not made quickly.

Why I Love to Cook

// October 16th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // family, recipes, storytelling

The best days of my life were summers when my grandmother would come to visit from Baton Rouge for long periods of time. My cousins Connie and Karlean would come too. When I was very young they would come on the bus. I would always look for the hatbox in my grandmother’s hand because that was a sure sign she had brought a cake with her. Somehow she had rigged the box so the cake wouldn’t move. Around the cake sometimes would be teacakes or pecan cookies that had the texture of a dense cake and were browned just on the edges where there was a slight buttery crunch.

I was always surrounded by family in Summer when my grandmother visited. Stories and laughter were always a-plenty. Connie and Karlean, 10 years older than us, would tell stories about high school friends. Grandmama would tell stories about how she met and came to marry “Rev. Belin” (which is what she always called my grandfather who was 30 years her senior) after the love of her life, Ellis Pressley, died leaving her alone with my Aunt Mae Ellis. My father would tell us how he began to work in the 1930′s at age 7 or 8 on the back of an ice truck (much of this, I suspect, was to emphasize how, comparatively, we were living on “flowery beds of ease”) and was kicked off once while the truck was in motion by the evil “white man.” My mother often demurred from telling stories unless prompted by a direct question, but when she started, her eyes glistened while she talked about listening to her “Poppa” (which she called her grandfather) tell them stories from his rocker by the wood stove. Henry, Toni and I shared stories on various subjects too, but we were (and still are) at our best with bathroom humor, to Grandmama’s dismay.

The best family time seemed to always be spent in the kitchen. It was here the stories were told. I still see the pictures I created in my imagination of what Poppa’s “front room” must have looked like and the street where Grandmama was standing when she asked, “what’s old Rev. Belin looking at me for?” and my father as a little boy crying and hurt as he lay in the street behind the ice truck while the evil “white man” laughed. These pictures come back when smell greens cooking. Every time I hear the cornbread sizzle as it hits the grease heated to “smokin’” in the oven in a black skillet I am transported to another place in time. When I stew tomatoes down with way too much sugar to go along side my breakfast, I bring a wonderful time in my life into my present.

Last night, I cooked a pot of soup: stew beef with vegetables. I hoped and prayed I remembered how to do it like Mama does. It took the better part of the evening waiting on the beef to get tender. But later, when it had simmered long enough, I began to smell a familiar smell that signaled that the soup was done. Then, I heard my mother’s voice in my head say, “it’s time to make the bread.” And so I did.

Here’s how I made the soup (don’t ask for amounts, you just have to pray as you go):

Beef Vegetable Soup

Cornbread

• Put your oven on 400
• Pour your oil into a black skillet and put it in the oven until the oil is smoking
• Get some self-rising white cornmeal
• Add an egg
• Add some oil. Add some more.
• Add enough buttermilk to make it like pancake batter
• Open the oven, pull the rack toward you and pour the batter in the hot smokin’ grease. If it doesn’t sizzle, you screwed up and I wouldn’t eat that.
• Close the oven door and cook until the bread is good and brown. Don’t nobody want no high yella bread!
• When you take it out, we professionals just flip the bread into our hands and back into the skillet, those with tender hands flip onto a plate. This is so you can have that magical crunch of the edge of the bread. If you don’t flip it, it will get soggy.
• Slice it in wedges and eat it down off in your soup.

Be sure to come back on this page and thank me when you make this ’cause this is perfect for this time of year.

The Matriarchs

// July 9th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // family

When I was a little boy I was in awe of the gray haired old ladies who were "the Matriarchs" of the family. They were the ones to whom the family deferred. Their presence commanded respect. Even my parents and my aunts and uncles who seemed to tell us what to do constantly had to submit to the authority of the Matriarchs. They were powerful women. Tall. Regal. Wrinkled from the Mississippi / Louisiana sun. These were women who had migrated to Chicago or Los angeles and returned to the homestead as sophisticated, well-traveled and well-educated women.

They were the keepers of family secrets, guardians of our history and family recipes for apricot brandy, lemon nut cake and whiskey nut cake which was baked one year and steeped in monthly pourings of Jack Daniels for and entire year.

The Matriarchs had power to deliver us from whippings and reminded our parents of their mess-ups in our presence. We loved it. It humanized our parents and softened their restrictions on us.

They carrried money in their bossoms and two I saw dip snuff and spit in old Folgers coffee cans. While I type I am remembering that we ate hot tamales out of Folgers Coffee Cans too… Hope they had two sets of cans!

One of them gave me a bedroom suite which had been in the family since the late 1800s. Aunt Geneva was one who required starched linens and ties at her dinner table. She also was a user of Nadinola to ensure her skin did not darken as she aged. Too, she strategically gained a few pounds each year after her 70th birthday to mitigate any wrinkles which would dare belie her age.

Arriving at the Crawford Family Reunion this evening reminded me of these great and grand ladies. But I was saddened to note their absence. I miss them. Now we have a new set of gray-haired ladies and my mother is among them. They have stepped into position and I see those around me in awe of them. Such a transition sneaks up on you. It is at once warming and unsettling. Time marches on and "the young become the old."

These have paid dues, lived through disappointments, celebrated successes, made wonderful memories for us, nursed the old matriarchs through illnesses and sat with them as they transitioned.

This is a special moment in which to be present. I am glad to be here to see our Matriarchs and to sit at their feet.

Leave a comment below and tell us about your Matriarchs.

Cake and Communion

// July 5th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // family, worship

So, I baked Ina Garten’s famous Flag Cake (click here for recipe ) for the congregation I’m privileged to serve this weekend. I baked it for my sister’s children a few years ago when it was featured on Martha Stewart. We had a blast that 4th of July. They were excited to help ice and decorate the cake with blueberries and strawberries (NOT raspberries as the recipe calls for). It made for wonderful memories. A few years later after I moved back to Nashville, some of my South Carolina crew came to visit and I baked the cake again. It was a communal endeavor. All of us were in the kitchen laughing, talking, decorating, sharing, telling old stories. We took the cake with us to Sandra’s house around the corner as our contribution to the barbecue. When I cut into the cake after dinner, I knew…. rubber!

Notwithstanding the rubber cake, our time in the kitchen baking the cake, cleaning up after it and laughing at my embarrassment are the stuff that make life worth living. We remind each other that we are loved, that we matter and that someone is genuinely interested in hearing the answer to, “how are you?” We are bound to each other and want what we believe is best for the other even when the other refuses to listen. We pray for each other and tease each other mercilessly. When something challenging happens to one of us, the others exploit it for all the humor that can be squeezed out of it. We force each other to laugh in the face of what would reduce isolated people to tears. We are a family bound together by love for each other and our God.

Well, the cake I baked for my Kairos Family was an overwhelming success (albeit a little dry for those who got pieces from around the edges). There was a lot of love in that cake. Before I put it into the oven, I lifted it before God and said, “Now, You know this is for Your people…” This prayer was not to guard against attacks by rubber spirits but a prayer that even an uneven cake with cream cheese icing, blueberries and strawberries can become an humble means to know God’s grace.