Hallelujah! The Welcome Table_ A Lifetime of Memories With Recipes - Maya Angelou [17]
By 1943, when I first saw him at my mother’s house in San Francisco, his good looks were as delicate as an old man’s memory, and disappointment rode his face bareback. His hands had gone. His gambler’s fingers had thickened. During the Depression he worked at the only straight job he knew, which was carpentering. That had further toughened his “moneymakers.” Mother rescued him from a job as a sweeper in a pinochle parlor and brought him home to look after the house and five roomers who rented from us.
He sorted and counted the linen when the laundry truck picked it up and returned it, then grudgingly handed out fresh sheets to the roomers. He cooked massive and delicious dinners when Mother was busy, and he sat in the tall-ceiling kitchen drinking coffee by the potfuls.
Papa Ford loved my mother (as did nearly everyone) with a childlike devotion. He went so far as to control his profanity when she was around, knowing she couldn’t abide cursing unless she was doing the cursing.
When I told him I had a job as a cook and needed his help, he said, “Why the sheeit do you want to work in a goddamn kitchen washing dishes?”
“Papa, the job pays seventy-five dollars a week and I’ll be cooking, not washing dishes.”
“Colored women been cooking so long, thought you’d be tired of it by now.” “If you’ll just tell me how to cook a few dishes …”
“High school and all that education. How come you don’t get a goddamn job where you can go to work looking like something?”
I tried another tack. “I probably couldn’t learn to cook Creole food anyway. It’s too complicated.”
“Sheeit. Ain’t nothing but onions, celery, green peppers, garlic, and tomatoes. Put that in everything and you got Creole food. I already told you how to cook rice.”
“Yes.” I could cook rice till each grain stood separately.
“That’s all, then. Them geechees can’t live without swamp seed.” He crackled at his joke, then recalled with a frown, “Still don’t like you working as a goddamn cook. Get married. Then you don’t have to cook for nobody but your own family. Sheeit. Yeah, don’t forget, put red chili pepper in everything. They’ll be expecting it.”
The Creole Cafe steamed with onion vapor, garlic mists, tomato fogs, and green pepper sprays. I put the Creole flavors into Vivian Baxter’s recipe for short ribs of beef, and Salisbury steak was just hamburger with a Creole sauce.
Mrs. Dupree chose the daily menu and left a note on the steam table informing me of her gastronomic decisions. But I, Rita, the chef, decided how much garlic and how many bay leaves would flavor the steamed Shreveport tripe. For over a month I was embroiled in the mysteries of the kitchen with the expectancy of an alchemist about to discover the secret properties of gold.
Only after the mystery had worn down to a layer of commonness did I begin to notice the customers. They consisted largely of light-skinned, slick-haired Creoles from Louisiana, who spoke French patois only a little less complicated than the contents of my pots and equally spicy. I thought it fitting and not at all unusual that they enjoyed my cooking. I was following Papa Ford’s instructions loosely and adding artistic touches of my own. Mrs. Dupree said I was building up her business.
Our customers never just ate, paid, and left. They sat for hours on the long backless stools and exchanged gossip or shared the patient philosophy of the black South.
Near the steam counter, the soft sounds of black talk, the sharp reports of laughter, and the shuffling feet on tiled floors mixed themselves in odorous vapors. I was content. My cooking was appreciated. I had pockets full of money and my son was well looked after. I may not have been happy.