Little Bear Corn Bread

            “Dorothy, my Grandma’s last name was Rainey because she remarried Spears Rainey from Athens, Alabama.  Now Spears was a fine man, whose favorite thing in the world to do was go squirrel hunting with his brother Ray.  My dad often said Spears was fit because he never ate more than one helping of any meal.  I know there was one exception:  cornbread and pinto beans.”  For years, Brian imitated an Alabama accent to the family, telling us funny stories of a man from the south who migrated to the north where he couldn’t get enough of “that sweet Kalkaska water”.  When Brian spoke like Spears the words seemed to get lost between his phalanx and his lips, as he spoke in an exaggerated whisper, where every sentence sounded like one long word.  So, in memory of our giggles and fun times at Spears’s expense, I finally developed my own version of cornbread.

            The first and most important point, I do not make a hard disc which needs several ladles of gravy.  Nor is it that nasty little blue-boxed mix of my child hood which contained ingredients for a weird yellow cake they called cornbread.  Mine is home-made and is not too dry or too sweet; it is just right for us.

            Little Bear Corn Bread

            1 cup cornmeal

            1 cup flour

            ¼ cup of sugar

            4 teaspoons of baking power

            ¼ cream of tarter

            ¼ cup melted butter or cooking oil - I prefer butter

            2 eggs

            1 cup of milk

I usually cook mine with my other foods on 350 and do not really pay attention to the cooking time, so this is where the guess work comes in.  Try letting it cook for 30 - 40 min.  Keep an eye on it; when you can stick a knife in it and it comes out clean, it’s time to eat!  BTW, Brian insists I mention his favorite way to eat my cornbread is topped with my strawberry freezer jam.  Maybe he’s trying to tell me it’s been too long since I made a batch of my world famous jam!