Da Best Cook Roun’ da Whol’ County

(The Best Cook Around the Whole County)

TW: Description of blood and brief physical violence

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Mama always loved how the mixtures of spices and herbs mingled in her nose as she cooked dinner for all seven of us in the family. Mama always let me sit on the counter next to her while she prepped the vegetables and fruits for our school lunch boxes. I would watch her hands slice, chop, mince, squeeze, and stir, day in and day out. The callouses she adorned looked rough and bumpy. The blisters she would develop were fleshy and bubbly. I loved her no less when she would accidentally cut herself. In fact, I admired her determination to finish cooking after slicing a huge gash in her hand.

“Don’ run ‘round hurr say’n you ain’t got da best cook roun’ da whol’ county. Cause Lawd knows dat I am and ain’t no 'un gon' take dat away from me, hea'?” Mama would say to me and my siblings every time she made her famous shrimp and sausage gumbo. We’d all respond cordially and with chubby smiles on our faces: “Yes, Mama!”

Mama loved cooking for everybody around her. She spent so much time feeding all the children and the elderly, day in and day out. People all across the county line would be standing at our porch, lined up and wrapped around the block to even get a whiff of her cornbread or her seafood boil stew or the family favorite: smothered pork chops and macaroni n’ cheese! Mama loved feeding people; seeing the look on their faces stuffed full of her cuisine and burping to their bellies’ content made her proud to be a housewife. Daddy would come home from work and kiss Mama on the cheek, holding her waist while she cooked. They’d make googly eyes at each other. Young, married, and in love. No wonder they had five kids.

My big brother Dante would take bags of Mama’s bacon-wrapped turkey sandwiches and homemade corn chips to his school to feed the kids that couldn’t afford the hot lunches. My big sister Leilani did the same, except with chicken sandwiches and granola bars. Freddie, Gregory, and I was all too young to do that just yet. But Mama let us help out by handing hot plates to the folks living out on the streets. They are all our neighbors as much as the Jeffreys and Lewises, Mama believed. She believed everyone deserved to eat something made with some T.L.C.: tenderness, love, and care. She always set out to achieve that to her fullest potential.

Then, Uncle Jovoni ended up passing away suddenly. He choked on an oxtail during Thanksgiving dinner. No one was there to help him because he had snuck off into the basement to eat some more food that was supposed to be saved for leftovers. No one found him until the next day. Mama was the one who found him.

Naturally, when it came time for the after-service get-together, Mama was the caterer. Auntie Marie and Auntie Cherri offered to help, but stricken with grief, Mama refused. She would shut herself in the kitchen for hours on end, only to shut herself back into her room when she was done for the day. She had stopped smiling for a long time. During the get-together, she watched all her family scarf her food down with no hesitation. They swear she was the best cook in all of the county. She barely even cracked a curve of her lips.

After that, I remember one night I woke up in the middle of the night thirsty for some water. Walking down the hall, I could hear noises, familiar noises: pots and pans clanging and clashing together. I went to check out who it was. Of course, it was Mama. But she wasn’t cooking nothing. She sat up all the cookware on the stove and all the prep stuff on the counter like she was finna cook, but wasn’t no food in her hands. I saw her chopping imaginary vegetables, I saw her stirring imaginary food in the pot, and I saw her about to turn on the very real burner. Afraid that the house might burn down, I ran to her and grabbed her hand. 

“Mama, whatchu doin’? Ain’t no food in dem pots and pans you got dere,” I whispered to her and gently squeezed her hand. She flinched and whipped her head right around, fear flashing in her eyes before she relaxed. She sighed in relief to see that it was only me, I imagined. She hugged me; I hugged her back.

She said, “M’ sorry, baby. Did I scare yuh? I ain’ mean to.”

“A lil’ bit, Mama. But, ‘s long ‘s you okay, I’m okay,” I replied. I flashed a toothy grin at her. Mama beamed at me, returning a bright smile. Mama looked so happy. I was so glad to see her so happy after so long. 

But it wouldn’t last.

I remember the day Mama clumsily cut herself for about the hunnid-’n-some’ time. Mama and I was preparing the hot lunches for our community. I was ‘bout 15 years old. Too old to sit on the counter anymore, but old enough to start stirring and chopping. As I was cutting potatoes, I heard Mama howl in pain beside me. She howled like I never heard before in my damned life. She was screaming bloody murder, crying and sobbing at the blood pouring out her wrist. I stood there frozen, silently staring in horror at the scene in front of me when Gregory and Freddie came bounding down the hall to see what had happened.

“Mama!” they shouted, running and kneeling on the floor huddled around Mama.

Greg turned to me and screamed, “Why you just standin’ there, dummy? Do somethin’!”

“Yeah, Hammy, do sumfin’!” Freddie followed in a shaky voice.

All I could think was, What about dinner? What’s gonna happen to dinner?

I stood staring off into nothing for what felt like hours, watching my brother sob as Mama laid out on the floor, completely passed out and almost purple in the face. By the time I had snapped out of my trance, I heard frantic voices and a bunch of men’s voices. I heard my daddy screaming from outside. Leilani and Dante weren’t home yet.

We all ended up at the hospital all night. All six of us were waiting patiently for Mama to wake up. 'She usually does,' I thought to myself. She was only sleeping really long this time, right?

Because we stayed overnight in the waiting room, we had takeout for dinner. It didn’t taste as good as Mama’s food; it never did. I tried to imagine sweet pot roast melting in my mouth to forget that I was actually eating Kung Pao. Dreaming about a tart, fluffy banana pudding spoonful didn’t help when I gagged at the bland, raw-textured slice of crudely-made apple pie. 

I started to sorely miss Mama’s food full of love and care.

The next morning, the doctor woke us up and told us he had some news. Daddy’s face looked concerned. He covered my ears, telling my older siblings to cover my other brothers’ ears, too. I couldn’t the man’s lips, but I read the sad, sad look on his face. I felt my daddy’s hands start to tremble until he finally let go of me.

I turned around to see Daddy welled up with tears to the brim of his waterline. He looked damn near angry, but I could tell it was more than that. He was upset; completely devastated; disappointed, moreover.

I pulled on his shirt and asked meekly, “Daddy? Is Mama gon' wake up yet? I’m hungry.”

He looked down at me. The flash of red adorning his irises came and went just as quickly as I felt the red sting land on my left cheek harder than I had ever endured, and I tumbled to the cold hospital carpet.

Leilani shouted at Daddy, “Daddy, stop! Don’t hit Hammy!” Dante was holding him back from coming after me again. Cradling my cheek, a few teardrops dripped down my sore, throbbing face.

I made no noise. I spoke nothing for the rest of the day. All I could replay in my head was when Mama fell to the ground bleeding out and the moment right before Daddy hit me.

Dante was the one that finally told me that Mama was in a coma. When she had cut herself, she “nicked” an artery in her wrist, making her bleed out so badly that her body went into shock from how much blood came out. Hypovolemic shock, I came to find out many years later.

Daddy didn’t want us skipping out on school, so we went back the next week. When we wasn’t at school, we was at home tryna figure out how to cook like Mama. Daddy couldn’t cook worth a damn. We spent days and nights and weekends on end copying all her recipes only to spit out the food ‘cause it was too cold or throw it away when it came out burnt.

The only thing we ever got right was Mama’s gumbo. And that’s what we ate. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Daddy hated it after a while, so he would buy himself food while we either ate our gumbo or starved until we could grocery shop.

Leilani, Dante, Gregory, and Freddie all gave up on cooking; the two eldest of us stopped when they dropped out of high school and left home. Greg only made gumbo every once and a while, otherwise he spent the money he earned from doing chores for the neighborhood on hot lunch. Freddie followed in Greg’s footsteps. All but me, Freddie, and Daddy were living in the family home by my last year of high school.

Me? I never gave up. I would get up, make a new food item every morning, take it to school and eat it throughout the day. I dedicated so much of my time to cooking and baking that I would fall asleep in every class. Then, I’d take the bus all the way to the downtown hospital to visit Mama. I’d sneak in food all the time. I thought that if I brought her her favorites she’d start to wake up and come back home. It never worked. I got caught sneaking in homemade food and was told to throw it out. I pleaded with the nurses to just leave me be, I wanted my mama to wake up and come back home, come back to me and my family to save us from falling apart!

They wouldn’t hear none of it. So, I said to them, “Please, at leas’ try it. I worked so hard on it. I spent months tryna git it right like Mama! Please, miss nurses, please!”

“Margaret, whatchu think?” the nurse lady on the right asked the one on the left.

“Shoot, I ain’t had lunch today. Might as well.”

The nurses took the container from me. They used a spoon from my mama’s tray, scooping up the gumbo and slurping it up. With a smack of their lips, they both leaned back and exclaimed, “Damn!”

“What?” I questioned. “What? What’s wrong wit it? Is it too spicy? Too cold? Too much skrimp? Oh, Lawd, I knew I shoulda added more creole seasonin’ to offset the turmeric, I jus’ knew it–!”

“Chile, stop allat screamin’. We ain’ mean it like dat. This good gumbo rightchea, ya know? Where you learn to make dis hea?” the nurse lady on the left told me, going back for another spoonful and smacking again. “Mhm, mhm, mhm! Dis right hea remind me of my mama cook’n’. Too bad she dead.”

I had stopped, processing what reaction I had just gotten to the gumbo I made. It hit me that they liked it. They liked what I had made! Finally, I did right by Mama. Them nurses couldn’t get me to stop whooping and hollering in the hallways, I was so ecstatic. I celebrated so loud that I probably woke the dead underneath the ground.

From that day forward I vowed to remake all of Mama’s recipes and make my own. I had big plans to open a diner or a cafe or a big ol’ restaurant with the five stars that them uptown folks talked all the time about.

Mama would eventually stop showing signs of consciousness. They declared her brain dead by my third year of high school. They said that the next of kin were in charge of deciding whether to take her off life support. Technically my daddy was next of kin, but he didn’t step up. Instead, he ran off with another woman he’d been seeing all the while my mama was in a coma and they was still legally married. Trifling ass.

So, it was up to me. I decided to wait on pulling the plug.

I tightened up and flew right. I studied, I cooked, I cleaned the house, and I took care of my siblings. Dante and Leilani would come visit once a week to try my food. My best and greatest food critics.

Freddie did what he could, but he fell short more often than not. I taught him how to take care of himself without having to do stuff for other people like Greg.

I became the first high school graduate. I applied to a local culinary college. 

I called all of my family about the news. My siblings were so happy for me. I tried to contact Daddy, but he was nowhere to be found. Greg didn’t answer my calls, either. I found that odd, so I called Uncle Jovoni’s son, Dennis. He was super close with Greg.

Dennis told us that Greg was crashing at his place at this time. Greg caught wind of what happened with Mama. Dennis found him sprawled on the floor with Uncle Jovoni’s nine-millimeter loose in his hand and blood splattered across the wall.

We held a service for him. I designated myself as the caterer this time.

I locked myself in the family home just like Mama did for Uncle Jo’s funeral. If I wasn’t cooking, I was crying. When I wasn’t crying, I was cooking. I cried while I cooked, and I cooked while I cried. For seven straight days, I didn’t come out the house.

But with lots of TLC, I whipped a banquet of Mama and Gregory’s favorites. An assortment of dishes and cuisine fit for a whole football team and a half I would say so.

My family loved my food all the same. All of their compliments floated left and right. Joyous smiles and full, satisfied bellies in every single person. I cracked a few smiles.

I saw my mama for the last time. Hours before I made the decision, I told her all about what I did: getting into culinary school, graduating high school, and feeding our entire family. I held her hand all the way through, tears streaming down my face as the doctor took out her IV and turned off life support. I could see Mama’s chest slowly rising and falling, getting slower and slower in movement. I wailed, squeezing her hand as hard as I could to let her know I was there. For a split second, I imagined her weakly returning the gesture. Then she took a final breath and her chest stopped moving.

I kissed the back of her hand. “Goodbye, Mama,” I whispered. 

You know, I think I believe in love languages. Mama’s must’ve been cooking to watch people stuff their faces with good, soulful food that she made. I think mine is, too. 

Her legacy left a wake in many people’s lives. Including mine.

So, I started a restaurant. “Mama’s Cookhouse”.

Tagline: “To da best cook roun’ da whol’ county, hea’?”