By The news says a vaccine is coming. Not now — months away, maybe — but coming. Hope in a syringe. Kayla explains it to me in nurse terms and then in grandmother terms, and the grandmother terms are: someone very smart made something that will teach your body to fight the virus. I said, "Like chicken soup?" She said, "Sort of. But with science." I said, "Chicken soup has science. It has garlic and love and forty-five minutes at a simmer." She smiled and said, "Granny, when the vaccine comes, you're getting it." I said, "I'll get it right after the chicken soup."
I wrote about the recipe box this week. Earl's wooden box, the one he made for our tenth anniversary, 1986. The wood is walnut, dark, smooth from thirty-four years of hands opening and closing it. Inside: Mama's cards, my cards, Earl's love notes, a few of Denise's early attempts at writing recipes (age eight, "put flower in bole, add eg, stir with spon" — I kept it because it's perfect). The box holds three generations of Henderson women's cooking. When I'm gone, it will hold four, because Kayla's notes are in there now too.
I recorded the story of the recipe box for the book and I heard my voice break when I got to the love notes. Earl's notes. Seven of them. Seven sentences that say more than seven novels. "Good soup tonight." "That pie was heaven." "I love you, Dot." The recorder captured the break in my voice and I left it in. The break is the story, baby. The break is where the love is.
Made cornbread tonight. Hattie Pearl's skillet. Butter, cornmeal, buttermilk. Simple. Eternal. The cornbread came out golden and I ate it with honey and I sat at the table and I talked to Earl and I said, "The book has a title, baby. It's called 'Now Go On and Feed Somebody.' You would have said it's too long." He would have. He would have been wrong. The title is exactly right.
Now go on and feed somebody.
That skillet cornbread I made tonight — butter, cornmeal, buttermilk, heat — reminded me that the best things we bake don’t need much more than a hot pan and honest ingredients. This 4-Ingredient Easy Italian Flatbread lives in that same spirit: simple enough that the act of making it feels like a conversation, not a performance. If you’ve got a cast iron skillet and something worth celebrating — a vaccine on the way, a book with a title, a name you say out loud to an empty chair — this is the bread you pull from the oven and eat warm, with honey if you like, while you talk to the people you love.
4-Ingredient Easy Italian Flatbread
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions
- Mix the dough. In a large bowl, stir together the self-rising flour and Greek yogurt until a soft, slightly sticky dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently 4—5 times until smooth.
- Divide and flatten. Cut the dough into 6 equal portions. Using a rolling pin or your hands, flatten each piece into a rough oval about 1/4 inch thick.
- Heat the skillet. Place a cast iron skillet or heavy pan over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon of olive oil and let it shimmer before adding the first flatbread.
- Cook the flatbreads. Cook each flatbread 2—3 minutes per side, until golden brown spots appear and the bread is cooked through. Add a small drizzle of olive oil to the pan between batches as needed.
- Finish and serve. As each flatbread comes off the skillet, brush lightly with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with garlic salt. Serve warm, straight from the pan.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 32g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 390mg