She Magazine JULY 2016 | Page 37

S She speaks slowly and with a drawl so that whoever might be listening can meditate on each word and soak up her wisdom like juicy, old, Southern family secrets. Of course, family is at the heart of any Southern home and in the hearts of all Southern Belles. Mrs. Jane speaks of her late mother in such a way that continues to honor her. As a young child, Mrs. Jane watched her mother cooking and baking in the kitchen and also observed her playing the piano. “I was so little that I had to pull a stool up to the counter to knead the cookie dough, but I was determined to do what Mama did.” Some afternoons she even cleaned the kitchen as a surprise for her mother when she came home. Mrs. Jane explains that her two sisters and mother were the pianists, and she was the cook out of the bunch. She began her skill at a young age by mastering cookies, then graduating to cakes and finally pies because she thought pies were the most difficult of all the sweets. Starches and sweets are Southern traditions that Mrs. Jane has carried her whole life. In fact, she has published a cookbook, Cooking with GaGa, that contains all the recipes she’s collected throughout her life, beginning when she cooked alongside her mother as a child. A copy of her cookbook has its place right beside her chair in the living room so that when her daughter or sister-in-law calls with a recipe question, all of her answers are within an arm’s reach. I don’t believe, however, that GaGa needs all of her recipes in print because she knows most of them by heart. When I was a little girl, Mrs. Jane attempted to teach me the real art of Southern baking with her famous homemade bread and peanut butter cookies. “A dash of this, a pinch of that, now beat that dough and get mad at it,” she would say. No recipe card was needed. A bookshelf stands in the corner of her kitchen filled from floor to ceiling with cookbooks, and I wonder if she’s cooked each recipe in them, how many she’s memorized, and what percentage of her life she has spent cooking for her loved ones. “I have a one-woman kitchen,” she says commenting on its size. But, I am sure at least three people could sit on her huge commercial-size stove and oven - all the better for cooking. Mrs. Jane is known for her paramount cooking abilities all around town. I like to think of her as the Paula Deen of Olanta. In fact, she was once featured on Cecil Chandler’s television show, Cooking with Cecil, where she prepared a dessert on television. Like any Southern lady would, Mrs. Jane has canned her fair share of fruits and vegetables that were grown on her family farm. Jellies, butter beans, pears, pickles, peaches, and peas were some of her specialties, just to name a few. She says she just can’t do “all of that” like she used to, though she wants to. Her health prevents her from going at the baking, canning, and whipping up that she did so frequently when her children were young. I think out of all the amazing dishes she can create, Mrs. Jane is most famous in our country community for her delicious homemade bread. She remembers staying up some nights until 2:00 in the morning, baking bread for a store on Main Street in Olanta. Her fresh bread displayed in the window brought customers into the store as soon as the doors opened. After about 15 minutes, all of her bread was purchased. The demand for the loaves is understandable because biting into a slice of her bread is like tasting a soft sponge that melts in your mouth, and the scent of yeast reminds you of days gone by and your mother’s Christmas cinnamon rolls. Yes, the bread transcends time. The loaves symbolize consistency when it seems that our world is changing rapidly with the times—the bread remains the same. Each time we take a bite, the reassurance of tradition rings true once again—it’s the Heavenly manna at Norwood Crossroads. CONTINUED SHEMAGAZINE.COM JULY 2016 39