‘Cause grandma’s from Backwoods, Mississippi, she can go to work on cornbread and buttermilk, or cornbread and beans, or well, cornbread and anything all smashed up in a bowl, but you live in Chicago and are only country by association, so you’ll need something green like greens, cabbage, or spinach to accompany your cornbread. Choose one, and then toss the leaves in a big pot. Fill half the pot with water if you’ve chosen greens or cabbage, and not quite half a pot for spinach. Hook that up and go sit down. Sit in the kitchen ’cause if you go to your room something on the news can snatch your attention and then you’ll let too much water boil out of the pot and burn the greens/cabbage/spinach, and then you won’t want to make the cornbread. So sit in the kitchen and flip through a magazine. Do not get on the phone.
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When you smell the greens/cabbage/spinach or hear some sizzling, go check the pot. If you’ve chosen spinach it might be done already; frankly, it might be burning. The greens or cabbage should be fine. Now that you smell the food, and you can’t forget your motivation, it’s time to make the doughnuts, I mean the cornbread. You’ll need grease, baking powder, salt, and water (hot enough to melt the paint off the walls). If you are not trippin’ about the fact that I did not list cornmeal, stop reading, stop cooking, and maybe you should go watch TV or get on the phone. Call a friend and tell them that you know jack about cooking. Order a pizza, or go buy a TV dinner. If you raised an eyebrow about the main ingredient being missing, you’ve stayed on your toes and you may proceed to read.
Grab a skillet and pour in enough grease to cover the bottom. There should be only about a quarter of an inch–you ain’t deep-frying chicken. Turn the heat up high, real high. When you think that the grease is hot, test it. Run the faucet, stick your clean hand under it–I really hope you washed your hands. I left that out, but you should know better! Shake the hand off, you ain’t trying to cause a war among you and the grease, you just want to aggravate it a bit. I know this sounds like suicide, but trust, I know what I’m talking about. Shake the hand over the pot. If the water starts popping all over the place, utilize the James Brown slide and get the hell out of the way. Now you know you still got the moves, and you know that the grease is ready for the batter.
