Those of you familiar with this journalistic jive are aware that I make a boo-boo about as often as Peggy bakes a good biscuit and Trio votes republican. The last time that happened there were glaciers in Greeleyville and only two Browns in Williamsburg County.
But my literacy virus on the column I wrote about Sandy Bay’s homecoming scandalized Marie Carter’s culinary masterpiece, her red velvet cake.
We wrote that its absence cast a shadow of doom and gloom over the growl, groan, gobble, and git affair. While I wasn’t present, my usual reliable sources turned out to be unreliable. My un-mortgaged hacienda is only a mile from the church and while the rest of my anatomy is a demolition derby, my nose is a technological marvel with powers that amaze mere mortals.
My nose can smell a petunia in a pile of horse manure. So it should have been able to detect the aroma of Marie’s red velvet cake. How long would you guess Mrs. Carter’s cake would last in a crowd of three or four hundred people who eat like the world is gonna run out of groceries next Tuesday.
I remember when “Cooter” Carter rode his white stallion down the Sandy Bay Road and kidnapped Marie from the bosom of her family. He brought this delicate southern flower back to Sandy Bay, where she majored in cooking with a minor in picking cotton. So there was one of Marie’s red velvet cakes at this year’s homecoming. But it vanished like a cold Pepsi in a cotton field in August. It’s my opinion if Marie had baked 10 red velvet cakes, you would have had to use a radar to find a crumb.
There should be a hall of fame for cooks. I would put “Big Mama” Willard Dye Evans in charge of it. He can make a margarita out of an Oreo cookie and a feast out of a crouton. Along with Marie Carter’s red velvet cake, I would nominate Mrs. Jeanette Inman’s chocolate pie. If heaven has a kitchen, that’s where you’ll find her.
Peggy’s mama was a great cook. Peggy’s sisters LaRotha and Jackie were great cooks. When Peggy and I got married, Peggy wanted to know what the kitchen was for. I explained to my bride, this was where she would cook. She then wanted to know what was that big white thing was standing against the wall. I explained that was a refrigerator. It makes ice. Peggy smiled and said; “Guess what we’re going to have for supper tonight?” Have you ever eaten three ice cubes between two slices of Sunbeam bread? And while I wouldn’t nominate Ole Scrap Iron for the culinary hall of fame, her grandchildren would.
There are others like Mrs. Bell Dukes boarding house, Mrs. Martha Thrower’s silver dollar sized biscuits at the hotel in Hemingway, a pickle sandwich from Preacher’s Drug Store, celebrity Ed Mishoe’s orange pineapple ice cream, the Indiantown BBQ that gained fame throughout the land. They never had to buy a hog, the hogs would all volunteer because any hog cooked at the Indiantown BBQ was considered a celebrity. And how about those cooks at Williamsburg High School, that corner at Earles and Farrah Wheeler’s old store always reminds me of food and football. I remember Robbie Higbe cigars and Hank Wright.
But things have changed dramatically since I ate my last meal at Williamsburg, like me. They boys that wore the blue football uniform under the lights at Earles have become grandpas. The cooks at Williamsburg High School belong in the gourmet hall of fame. Their last names: Walters, Chavis, Driggers, Boyd. I’m certain those in Suttons, Oak Ridge, Earles, Trio, Aimwell, Warsaw, Morrisville, all could tell you the first names. Sometimes my memory is in intensive care. Sometimes I can remember what John Flagler had on special the last week in October 1955. My memory may need overhaul, but my imagination can still play in the Super Bowl. Bunny Taylor McKenzie is the only resident from Sandy Bay who went to Williamsburg and she could only supply the last names. Old age ain’t for sissies.