Sugar in the cornbread

I realized something was not right as soon as the words were out of my mouth. The cleaning lady in our building had asked me how I make chilli, and I started, "Well, I just open the can..." The other ladies in the room went silent, and I was left sitting in front of my computer in the newsroom, feeling more than a little awkward. Food out of a can is not what a southern belle serves up.

I had been curious in the kitchen as a little girl, but my mom found it too stressful to deal with my recipe inventions and the mess that was sure to follow. Eventually, I was banned from the kitchen except to do the cleanup after the meal. In college, there wasn't much space or reason to cook for myself, so I did very little of it. On my own, I was too busy starting my career as a journalist. When I got married, I had very little idea of how to make a meal, but I had dreams of a house filled with wonderful aromas from the kitchen. So, I set out to cook.

It was like those bad auditions for American Idol. I was so bad I didn't know it. My husband dubbed the smoke detector "the dinner bell." I frequently had to scrape or cut away charred edges and blackened skins--and not the cajun kind--just so there would be something salvageable for us to eat.

One of the ladies from church, probably out of pity, gave me a cookbook. My mother started offering helpful advice as well. And, with the help of the Food Network, I started to figure out how to make things that were not just palatable, but kind of good. Pretty darn good, actually.

Fast-forward a few years to a few weeks ago, when the office manager in our PR group asked what I'd made for dinner the night before. I explained that I'd made a big pot of chilli--really tasty stuff--and cornbread from scratch. I commented that I might have put a little too much sugar in it.

It was the same awkward silence that had greeted me in a different office years earlier.

"Sugar? In your cornbread? That's unheard of," she said.

"No, it's good," I insisted.

"No, that's cake," she said.

Apparently, southern belles also do not put sugar in their cornbread.

This one does.

So, here's the recipe:
About 1 1/2 cups of self-rising corn meal (makes it easier)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup flour
And...
1/4 cup sugar

Mix it up, pour into a greased baking dish (or iron skillet) put in a preheated oven (about 450 degrees) and bake about 25 minutes.

It comes out pretty fluffy, but so yummy. Best served up hot with a glass of cold milk. Mmmmmmm.