Steven Phillips, Childhood Memory My childhood memory takes me back to the mornings of breakfast in Charleston, SC. Every Saturday morning my grandmother, known to everyone as “Granny”, would be up around 4 in the morning preparing a hearty old fashioned breakfast. It usually consist of such items as made from scratch buttermilk pancakes, brown & serve link and patty sausage, bacon, eggs, toast and red colored kool-aid. I shared a room with my older brother Eric and my two cousins Artie and Toni, who were with us every summer as a vacation away from the big city of Brooklyn, NY.
I remember how Granny used to ease herself into the kitchen as quiet as a mouse as if trying not to even wake the air itself. However, once she gets in the kitchen all hell would break loose with pots and pans of all shapes and sizes falling and rambling about. At first, it would be a real bother and then it was like the rhythmic taps of a band drum line which would easily put you right back to sleep if you knew how to clear your mind properly.
Then the ravishing aroma of a hearty breakfast would fill your dreams with pure satisfaction. There was this old cast iron skillet that at the time had to be over 50 years old but it still out fried any new pan that anyone ever bought her for Christmas. She would do everything with this pan one minute she scrambling eggs, then she frying bacon, then the sausage. She would even take the drippings from the sausage and make home-style dark gravy with only oil, onion, and flower.
She would take the diced onion and drippings and heat them until golden brown then start adding flour to the skillet and before you know it she had the skillet full up with rich gravy. We all would just wake up with the food being our alarm clock and head in the kitchen like zombies about to feast on fresh tasty humans. There would be little talking as we dug into the ravishing feast of choice. I can hear Granny saying now; “Eric let your brother have that last piece of meat before I knock you into next week! Due to age and size I always got treated like royalty true her eyes. I would eat enough for two grown men before finally saying I had enough. All the food would be finished completely in less than an hour by me and siblings. She used to say that watching us eat was like watching a shark tear apart a seal. We would always ask for more to be sure to have enjoyed every last morsel. Once all is done and we have washed up it is now time to head to the fields to start harvesting crops. As we head out the only thing on our minds is how good that breakfast was.
