Great Food, All Day Long_ Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart - Maya Angelou [23]
For the dinner following this sermon, my grandmother had cooked a ham and some large fluffy biscuits and fried a chicken to its golden promising end. She had made a potato salad, and to decorate the dish, she halved more hard-boiled eggs than usual and placed some of them on top, pushing many more down into the salad.
We grew lettuce, which never formed a ball; its leaves were wide, flat, and tender. I had washed the lettuce and my brother Bailey had crushed ice and we put it into my grandmother’s crystal bowl. The common way of eating potato salad showed a diner laying one leaf of lettuce onto a salad plate. Then one to two spoons of potato salad would be placed in the center of the salad leaf.
That particular Sunday, the Presiding Elder blessed the table and I thought that he thought he was again in the pulpit, preaching another long-winded sermon. I peeked out of half-closed eyes and saw the ham fat had turned white on the platter and my grandmother’s beautiful biscuits, so fluffy earlier, had sat down on themselves. When he finally finished saying the blessing, he looked over the chicken and took two of the largest pieces. He chose the thickest slab of ham, and then he attacked the potato salad. He raked about four halves of the eggs on top and then put a mound of potato salad on the plate, which was already about to collapse.
Bailey saw that—in fact, we all saw that—but Bailey was first. He took the fork from the salad bowl and instead of taking one leaf of lettuce, he put the fork down until he reached the bottom of the bowl and he picked up every leaf and shook them and put them all on his plate. My grandmother looked at him and at his action and said nothing. My Uncle Willie said nothing. The preacher was already eating.
Bailey looked at me; I was mute with fear, so he took the fork and started to put the lettuce back into the bowl. My grandmother in her soft, firm voice said, “No, little mister, you will eat every one of those leaves.” Bailey looked at me again and he raked off one leaf into his lap and rolled it as if it was a cigarette under the table and gave it to me to eat, raked another, rolled it, and ate it. Each time Bailey reached for a piece of chicken, my grandmother said, “No, little mister, finish your lettuce first.” He and I ate every shred of lettuce and my grandmother excused us from the table. We cried and laughed. We were angry and tickled.
When the Presiding Elder had left, my grandmother called Bailey and me back to the dining room. She said, “You know there is always something in the kitchen for Grandmother and her children. I would never let that greedy vulture eat everything. You also must know, for every action you also must pay. Now look in the icebox and bring that salad out here.”
Warm Garden Salad
8 small broccoli florets
8 asparagus tips
4 small leeks, washed thoroughly
1 small rutabaga, cut into thin strips
2 portobello mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 zucchini, thinly sliced
4 cups assorted salad greens or 6 romaine lettuce leaves
Vinaigrette
1 garlic clove, crushed
2⁄3 cup apple cider vinegar
1⁄3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons sherry
2⁄3 teaspoon prepared mustard (any kind will do)
Salt and pepper
Blanch the broccoli, asparagus, leeks, rutabaga, mushrooms, and zucchini in boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside, keeping warm.
Prepare the vinaigrette: In a blender, combine the garlic, vinegar, olive oil, sherry, and mustard. Add salt and pepper to taste and puree.
Moisten the vegetables with the vinaigrette and arrange on top of the salad greens.
SERVES 6. Serving size: 1 or 2 pieces of each vegetable on a bed of greens.
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