After 93 years, a legend is gone. My friend Lucrethia Cairl has gone to meet her maker. When she was 85 years old. Her family thought they would surprise her with a birthday party. She came in dressed up in her Sunday dress, wearing elaborate jewelry and stiletto high heels. She came in with a look of surprise that could only be well rehearsed. She was a bit too surprised, flinging her arms wide with surprise and exclaiming with high pitched squeals of glee. We had been friends for a number of years, so I took her aside later in the party and said that was an academy award winning performance. How did you know?".
Her reply was "When your son-in-law has been your son-in-law for 27 years and he ain't never taken you to ride, comes by and says 'let's go riding', you know something's up." She was always that savvy. She had to be. She raised her children during the depression as a black single mother. She made her living as a cook, mostly at the Alabama Grill. It was the local landmark and watering hole,of which one local father said when his son was ready for college "I'm not going to send him to college, I'm going to send him to the Alabama Grill. He can learn everything he needs to know there anyway."
Lucrethia taught me a lot about cooking just by listening to her. She was a narrative cook. She had a story for every recipe. Not only did she teach me to put bell pepper into my dressing along with the standard onions and celery, but she taught me to stir it to get it to set, instead of putting in a number of eggs to do the job. She said that years ago, hens didn't lay many eggs except in the spring time, so the eggs had to be saved for the holiday cakes where they were really needed. To get the dressing to set, the cook had to stir it around in the baking pan to get the texture right. Her dressing was the best I ever had, right up there with her chicken pie. The highest compliment she could pay anybody was to make them a chicken pie. Like most of the cooks in our rural south, Lucrethia equated cooking with love. We feed those we love. It is our favorite way of honoring those we love. I guess that's why we call it soul food.
I knew that Lucrethia and I had a real bond when she made me a chicken pie. She used to make it regularly at the Alabama Grill as a lunch special. She worked there until she was in her eighties.
At the surprise birthday party, Lucrethia had to make a speech. One of her daughters introduced her. The daughter said that members of the family have always been told that their mama could out walk them and out talk them any day of the week. Lucrethia proved the point by strutting around the room on her high spiked heels before she started her speech. Then she strutted to the middle of the room. She gave credit for her good health and vitality to her skills as a root doctor. She made up a potion consisting of various herbs and turpentine which she dosed herself with daily. She had never been sick she said and it was all due to her root potion. Something certainly worked. She was the highest stepper as well as the best cook in town. Her positive attitude didn't hurt either. Lucrethia will be missed both for her vital presence and her famous chicken pie. Although her presence is no longer among us, her chicken pie lives on. She shared her cooking skills with all her daughters and with others who loved her. She shared a bit of her soul with us, which we still turn into chicken pies and dressing with bell pepper in it.
