Puff Biscuits, Wooden Spoons and Scrambled Eggs

Puff Biscuits, Wooden Spoons, and Scrambled Eggs

A few days ago, in the middle of serious talk about moving Elizabeth from the farm in Zebulon to her new place, I asked her, “What is your favorite childhood food?”

She look sideways for a minute and started talking about the aromas, the feelings they created, and how much comfort the idea of ‘Mom’s cooking’ did for her.

She then asked, “What about you?”

Without hesitation I said, “Puff biscuits, wooden spoons, and Scrambled Eggs.”

“What is that?”

“Well,” I said, “it’s like this. Mom used to make EVERYTHING in the kitchen. She is one of the ‘last of the Mohicans’ …a real cook. Breakfast was the food of the god’s…(little g). She could make a kitchen come alive and in a matter of minutes the room was filled with enough energy and action to put the U.S Navy to shame.

She would pull out the flour and sprinkle it on the counter top, roll out the flour for biscuits and then cover it again with a lite coat of flour. She would then get out a coffee or drinking glass, lay down the open end over the flour and ‘puff’ and biscuit was born from the magic of Lynn Kennon’s hands. I mean, right there, in front of me ‘boom’ they were there! She would let me help, and I would work my way through all of the flour, then re-roll the flour and then start over again.

Once all of the flour was used up, we would take the biscuits, and put them on a heated greased pan, then into the oven they would go, at 325 degrees, if the oven runs hot. If not, then 350. After 5 or 6 minutes, or just until the tops browned, out would come the world’s most sought after biscuits. (Bojangles has NOTHING on her!)

She would then get the eggs out, crack them in a open skillet and start the cooking process. Those little chicks would bubble and move as she ‘scrambled’ them. In goes pepper and the mix of with the magic wooden spoon. Harry Potter couldn’t conjure up the magic my momma could in the kitchen… that sounds so redneck doesn’t it? But it is true. My mom would take that little small kitchen and turn it into something to behold.

But whatever she did all I know is that I can still see, hear and smell those breakfasts she made. To this day, it brings comfort, warm feelings and emotions that take me right back home to my roots, to my family, to my dad and to my mom.

I wonder, really, what make this so magical? It is the smell? Is it the food, and how food connects to us since it totally sets off a number of our senses?

I’ve been thinking that, more than anything else, it is ‘love’. My mom poured out more of her heart then she did flour, and pounded, worked and nurtured us in the 100’s of ways that only she could do, and stayed with it, day in and day out as she worked harder than any worker in a steel factory.

It was and is love. It isn’t the food. So I go back and ask what is your favorite childhood food? Though in reality, a better question might be, “What ways did your mom feed you with love and nurture from her heart?”

Safe Journeys this week!