All Around Seasoning Mix — Seasoned With His Memory

I went back to coaching basketball. The fall league started, and the kids needed their coach, and needing to be somewhere is the closest thing to healing that September offered. Devonte is fourteen now and playing on the older team, which means I see him less. Nia is ten and the best shooter in the program. A new crop of six and seven-year-olds arrived, including Aiden, who plays in the same program I coach. He is on a different coach's team (Mr. Davis's rule — coaches' kids play for other coaches, to prevent bias and enable objectivity). I agreed. I watch Aiden play from across the gym and the pride is so large it barely fits in the building. The cooking continued. Every day. The food is getting better again — not because my technique changed (technique does not change with grief; it survives grief) but because the intention is returning. I am not cooking from duty anymore. I am cooking because the kitchen is where Marc lives now — in the smothered pork chops, in the rib recipe he called "stupid good," in the meals I make that are seasoned with his memory. The kitchen is the only place where Marc's absence feels like a presence instead of a void. When I cook, he is here. When I eat, he is at the table. The food holds him. The food has always held the people we love, and now it holds the people we have lost. I catered a small event this month — a birthday party, thirty people. The first catering since Marc died. I was not sure I could do it — the scale, the social interaction, the pretending that everything is normal when nothing is normal. But I did it. The food was good. The people ate with their eyes closed. And at the end of the evening, a woman came to me and said, "Thank you. This food felt like love." Love. She could taste it. The love that lives in the food is not diminished by grief. It is deepened. The love has more layers now. One of the layers is Marc. Sunday dinner was Mama's gumbo. I ate three bowls. The gumbo tasted like every gumbo Mama has ever made and also like the first one she will make in a world without Marc, and the two flavors — the permanent and the changed — are mixed together and cannot be separated, and that is what grief does to food: it adds a flavor that was not there before, a flavor that has no name, a flavor that you will taste for the rest of your life.

The word I kept coming back to while writing this — the word that held everything — was seasoned. Marc’s memory is in the seasoning. The gumbo Mama made on Sunday tasted the way it did because of what went into it at the foundation, before anything else. That’s this mix. This is what I reach for when I’m cooking from intention again, when I need the kitchen to feel like a place where someone I love still lives. Every smothered pork chop, every pot of gumbo, every dish I catered for thirty people who ate with their eyes closed — it started here, with this blend, with the technique that grief cannot touch.

All Around Seasoning Mix

Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 5 min | Servings: About 1/2 cup (roughly 24 teaspoons)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon coarse black pepper
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mustard

Instructions

1. Measure. Measure all spices individually before combining — this keeps the ratios honest and prevents over-salting.
2. Combine. Add all measured spices to a medium mixing bowl and stir together until fully blended and uniform in color.
3. Taste and adjust. Dip a clean finger or pinch onto a small piece of bread to check the balance. Add a touch more cayenne for heat or a pinch more smoked paprika for depth, as preferred.
4. Store. Transfer to an airtight jar or spice container. Store in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. This blend keeps for up to 6 months, though the aroma is best within the first 3.
5. Use freely. Apply as a dry rub on pork chops, chicken, or ribs before searing. Stir into gumbo base, bean soups, or braising liquids. Season roasted vegetables or fried fish. This mix is built to go on everything.

Nutrition (per teaspoon)

Calories: 5 | Protein: 0g | Fat: 0g | Carbs: 1g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 290mg