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done, the old men were paid in meat and money and disappeared in their old trucks. And my loneliness came back home.
     
    The house had a small galley kitchen where my mother performed daily miracles, stretching a handful into a potful, making the most of what we raised.
    Cooking mostly from memory and instinct, she took a packet of meat, a bunch of greens or a bag of peas, a couple of potatoes, a bowl of flour, a cup of cornmeal, a few tablespoons of sugar, added a smattering of this and a smidgeon of that, and produced meals of rich and complementary flavors and textures. Delicious fried chicken, pork chops, and steak, sometimes smothered with hearty gravy, the meat so tender that it fell from the bone.
    Cob-scraped corn pan-fried in bacon drippings, served with black-eyed peas and garnished with thick slices of fresh tomato, a handful of diced onion, and a tablespoon of sweet pickle relish.
    A mess of overcooked turnips simmering in neck-bone-seasoned pot liquor, nearly black—tender and delectable. The greens were minced on the plate, doused with hot pepper sauce, and served with a couple sticks of green onions and palm-sized pieces of hot-water cornbread, fried golden brown, covered with ridges from the hand that formed them, crispy shell, crumbly soft beneath.
    Mam’ Grace had taught my mother how to turn scrap meat into whole meals. Chicken backs, necks, and gizzards made aromatic stock for rice or dumplings. Chitlins, hog maws, and tripe were boiled all day or pan-fried, then doused with hot sauce. Boiled pigs’ feet were drizzled with vinegar to add some kick and keep our fingers from sticking together when we ate them. Chicken and beef livers were fried crispy and spicy.
    And none of the food was to be wasted.
    When my mother was coming up, people ate anything and everything just to survive. They ate the whole chicken, even the brain, scrambled in eggs, then cracked the bones and sucked the marrow.
    My mother grew up having her hair greased with olive oil and her legs slathered with bacon grease because she couldn’t afford body lotion or even a steady supply of petroleum jelly. She cleaned her teeth with a rag dipped in a solution of baking soda and salt because she couldn’t afford toothpaste or a brush. She slept in a ratty-dress-turned-nightgown between a handmade quilt and sheets stitched from old sacks. She drank tea made from cow chips and pine needles to ward off a cold because her family couldn’t afford medicine. Waste was unconscionable for those who had grown up with barely enough, and we now had to lean on that learning more than ever.
    If anything was left on your plate, you were scolded: “Yo’ eyes bigga than yo’ belly!”
    And no food was to be tossed because of bruising or the onset of decay. There was always another way to use something. Bread ends and stale scraps were crumbled and baked into a bread pudding. Dark spots on rotting bananas were carved out, the remains sliced thin and layered into banana pudding. Bruised spots were pared from apples, the good parts chopped up, dusted with cinnamon and sugar, folded into pockets of dough, and pan-fried until golden brown. Half-sour milk was used to make biscuits and bread, a dash of baking soda added to cut the acid.
    When something truly spoiled, it became scraps for the dogs or was dropped into the slop bucket for the hogs.
    When the weather got warm enough we fished, as much because we needed to as we wanted to. We fished anywhere you could get a bite—lakes and reservoirs, streams and rivers, spillways and ditches, natural and man-made ponds. All we needed was a pole or rod, a can of worms dug from a shady spot in the yard, and a bucket for the catch. We found a favorable bend in the bank, a spot where weeds were worn down by foot traffic, and moved as close to the water as we could without slipping in. I liked to get close enough to catch sight of the swarms of minnows or clouds of tadpoles playing in the safety of the