I’m not one of those people who enjoys cooking. For me, cooking has always been more of a chore than a source of pleasure. I’m pretty sure it stems from my childhood. Mom cooked simple southern meals, complete with biscuits or cornbread, in a sweltering Georgia kitchen (we didn’t have air conditioning for years) and served them to mostly unappreciative children and a harshly critical husband.

Nothing ever satisfied my father. If mom served biscuits, he wanted cornbread. If we had cornbread, he wanted biscuits. The food was either too hot or too cold. Too salty or not salty enough. I lived in the land of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, only in my house, nothing was ever “just right.”

Over the last four years I’ve come to identify some of my issues with cooking and even talked them over with my friend Rachel Hauck, who’s upcoming book “Dining with Joy” will be released in November.

Today, I revisited childhood issues
We had some blackberries that we needed to use before they went bad, so I decided to make blackberry cobbler. I looked in my church recipe cookbook (you know, the one with all those tried and true covered dish recipes) and found Nancy Wilkerson’s Easy Peach Cobbler. I figured I could substitute blackberries for peaches so I hastily gathered all the ingredients and went to work.

Step 2 instructed me to make a batter, but my mixture hardly seemed batterable. Ah, I had forgotten the milk. No worries. I added milk and voila – I had batter. Step 4 instructed me to mix 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, then pour over the fruit/batter mixture. Um. Problem.

I never saw the water in the ingredient list. And I used all the sugar in the batter. If I added more sugar to the water mixture, it might be too sweet. Shoot! Step 5 said do not mix, so I couldn’t go back and mix it all in. I think the water/sugar mixture was supposed to cover the top to make it bubble and boil and turn all golden brown.

Now what had I done??

And that’s when all the old criticisms and less than perfect memories came bubbling up, faster than the blackberries in my cobbler. Which wasn’t technically cobbler anyway, because it was still in the pan on the counter. The knot in my throat resurfaced, but today the tears didn’t make their way out.

I’ve come a long way from that little girl who sat in that kitchen years ago, listening to my father berate my mother and her cooking. Yet for a few moments, I condemned myself for not reading all the directions before starting. But I didn’t allow myself to stay in that place.

I added slightly less than a cup of water, and said, “that should work,” and put the cobbler in the oven. I was, after all, improvising.

I’m happy to report that the cobbler is delicious! It would be great with a scoop of Breyer’s vanilla bean ice cream, a strong cup of coffee or even a glass of dessert wine. But it’s also wonderful, just the way it is. Mistakes and all.

God is like that too, don’t you think? He uses every circumstance to bring about His sweet goodness in our lives. We don’t typically know what it will look like when He’s finished, but we can trust Him for the outcome. I’m reminded of Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Mrs. James P. Wilkerson III’s Easy Peach Cobbler Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 c. flour
• 1 1/2 c. sugar (*my note: 1/2 cup in batter & 1 cup at the end)
• 1 c. water (*at the end)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 stick butter or margarine, melted
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 6-8 peaches, sliced

Line bottom of 9×12 inch pan with fruit. Mix flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, melted butter, milk, and vanilla to make a batter. Pour batter over fruit. Mix 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water and pour over batter. Do not mix. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for one hour.

Bon appetit!

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