Hallelujah! The Welcome Table_ A Lifetime of Memories With Recipes - Maya Angelou [16]
Braísed Cabbage
wíth Gínger
SERVES 4
1 medium to large head of cabbage
2 tablespoons (¼ stick) butter
¼ cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons peeled, grated fresh ginger
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
1 cup chicken bouillon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Quarter cabbage, remove stalk, and cover with boiling water. Let sit for 10 minutes. Drain cabbage, and pat dry in a towel. Remove to chopping board, and cut into bite-size pieces.
Melt butter over moderate heat and add cabbage, onion, ginger, bell pepper, and bouillon. Sautê until tender but not brown. Cover and cook over medium heat an added 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve at once.
Cabbage wíth Celery and
Water Chestnuts
SERVES 4 TO 6
1 large onion, sliced
1 green bell pepper, cut into large pieces
3 stalks of celery, chopped
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 head cabbage, cut into large bite-size pieces
1 cup water
One 8-ounce can water chestnut slices, drained
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Sauté onion, bell pepper, and celery in oil until translucent but not brown. Add cabbage and water, cover, and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. Add water chestnut slices to cabbage. Season with salt and pepper. Cook 10 more minutes, and serve.
CAN YOU COOK CREOLE?”
I looked at the woman and gave her a lie as soft as melting butter. “Yes, of course. That’s all I know how to cook.”
The Creole Cafe had a cardboard sign in the window that announced, COOK WANTED. SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK. As soon as I saw it I knew I could cook Creole, whatever that was.
Desperation to find help must have blinded the proprietress to my age, or perhaps it was the fact that I was six feet and had an attitude that belied my seventeen years. She didn’t question me about recipes and menus, but her long brown face did trail down in wrinkles, and doubt hung on the edges of her questions. “Can you start on Monday?” “I’ll be glad to.”
“You know it’s six days a week. We’re closed on Sunday.”
“That’s fine with me. I like to go to church on Sunday.” It’s awful to think that the devil gave me that lie, but it came unexpectedly and worked like dollar bills. Suspicion and doubt fled from her face, and she smiled. Her teeth were all the same size, a small white picket fence semicircled in her mouth.
“Well, I know we’re going to get along. You’re a good Christian. I like that. Yes, ma’am, I sure do.”
My need for a job stiffed my telling (confessing to) her that I mean to be a Christian but that I blow it every day. Instead, I asked her, “What time on Monday? Bless the Lord!”
“You get here at five.”
Five in the morning. Those mean streets menaced by thugs who had not yet gone to sleep, pillowing on someone else’s dreams. Five! Just when the streetcars began to rattle, their lighted insides looking like exclusive houses in the fog. Five!
“All right, I’ll be here at five, Monday morning.”
“You’ll cook the dinners and put them on the steam table. You don’t have to do short orders. I do that.”
Mrs. Dupree was a short, plump woman of about fifty. Her hair was naturally straight and heavy. Probably Cajun, Indian, African, and white, and, naturally, Negro.
“And what’s your name?”
“Rita.” Marguerite was too solemn and Maya too fancy. Rita sounded like dark, flashing eyes, hot peppers, and Creole evenings with strummed guitars. “Rita Johnson.”
“That’s a right nice name.” Then, as some people do to show their sense of familiarity, she immediately narrowed the name down. “I’ll call you Reet. Okay?”
Okay, of course. I had a job. Seventy-five dollars a week. So I was Reet. Reet, poteet, and gone. All Reet. No wall I had to do was learn to cook. I asked old Papa Ford to teach me.
He had been a grown man when the twentieth century was born and left a large family of brothers and sisters in Terre Haute, Indiana (always called the