By Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the library's annual reading of the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is virtual again — a video recording, not a room full of people, not the shared experience of hearing those words in the building where I first organized the reading fifteen years ago. The virtual-ness diminishes nothing about the letter but diminishes everything about the experience, because the experience is the gathering, and the gathering is the point, and the point is temporarily inaccessible.
James did not attend this year — he is in Columbia, preparing for his final semester, studying for the LSAT, which he will take in February. The LSAT is the gate, and James is approaching it with the focused determination of a young man who has been walking toward this gate since he was sixteen and who will walk through it because walking through gates is what the Simmons-Blackwood family does: they prepare, they arrive, they enter.
Robert has been particularly attentive to Mama this week — reading to her every afternoon, walking with her in the garden despite the January chill, sitting with her in the kitchen while she hums. The attentiveness has a quality of urgency that was not there before, and I wonder if Robert sees something I am too close to see — the way a doctor sees a patient differently than a family member does, the clinical eye catching what the loving eye misses. I do not ask him what he sees. I am not ready for the answer.
I made cornbread — just cornbread, nothing else, because some days the only thing the kitchen needs to produce is the simplest thing, the thing that requires the fewest ingredients and the most faith: flour, cornmeal, buttermilk, an egg, and the belief that the oven will do what the oven always does, which is transform the raw into the ready.
There was nothing more I could do about the virtual gathering, or James and his LSAT, or whatever it was Robert was seeing in Mama that I wasn’t ready to name — so I turned to the kitchen and let it do what it does best. Cornbread is breakfast for dinner in its most elemental form: the kind of thing you make when the day has already been full enough, and what you need from food is not ambition but presence. The recipe below is exactly what I made that evening — one bowl, one pan, the oven doing its quiet, faithful work.
Breakfast for Dinner: Simple Skillet Cornbread
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 32 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar (optional, for a touch of sweetness)
- 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
- 1 large egg
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled, plus more for the pan
Instructions
- Heat the oven and pan. Preheat oven to 425°F. Place a 9-inch cast iron skillet (or an 8x8-inch baking pan) in the oven while it preheats — a hot pan gives the cornbread its signature crust.
- Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar (if using) until evenly combined.
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, and melted butter until smooth.
- Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir with a spatula until just combined — a few lumps are fine. Do not overmix.
- Bake. Carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven and add a small pat of butter, swirling to coat the bottom and sides. Pour in the batter; it should sizzle at the edges. Bake for 20–22 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Rest and serve. Let the cornbread rest in the pan for 5 minutes before slicing into wedges or squares. Serve warm, with butter if you like, or simply as it is.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 195 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 310mg