CORNBREAD SKILLET

Mama cook everything in a heavy black iron skillet.

Fried chicken, taters, fruit pies...you name it, it went in that skillet (and she made it damn good!).

The ranch hand don't rightly remember, but it would be a good guess that she made cornbread in the oven in that skillet. Regardless, when she passed, Dad "inherited" the skillet and it is a well known fact that he made world class cornbread in that puppy.

Always the same consistency, always just the right amount of "brown" on the top, and it always fell out of the skillet effortlessly and looked like a layer of a cake ready for the icing.

Dad passed and number one son "inherited" the skillet and the cornbread recipe.

Ever noticed how just getting a recipe don't perzactly result in a great table setting? Ya gotta learn time, temperature, and temperament of stuff and just plain keep on a'tryin'.

What follers is likely to be the first/last "recipe" my loyal reader(s?) will find in this humble blog. Mom started it, Dad fine-tuned it, and yours truly will spend the rest of his life trying to live up to the honor of cooking it:

CORN BREAD

1 cup flour
1 cup yellow corn meal
1 pinch soda
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
buttermilk
(put any SUGAR in it and you will be hunted down like a cur dawg and called the pansy ya are)

450 degrees oven in greased skillet for 20-25 minutes.

(What follers is "top secret" classified shit so remember that loose lips sink ships)

After cooking yur culinary masterpiece, scrub that skillet in soap/water, but NEVER dry it with a towel! Put your treasured baking tool on the stove over a fire and heat it until the water evaporates and while still hot, rub some cooking oil on the interior to keep it "seasoned". Then put that implement of deliciousness in its storage place "oiled" til the next time.

Cooking instructions for DUMMIES (like yore chubby scribe): Wait till that red hot poker from hell has cooled before ya grab holt the handle or ya will soil your pants when the error of your ways sinks in (Hell yes, there is a reason yur chuck wagon aficionado know this?).