Herbed Oatmeal Pan Bread

I have been making notes. Not recipes—I don't write recipes, Bernice never wrote recipes, and I've spent fifty years learning to cook without measuring cups and I'm not going to start now—but notes about what I've been cooking. What I made this week, who I made it for, what it meant. Calvin noticed the yellow legal pad on the counter and asked what it was. I said it was notes. He accepted this without needing more, which is one of the things I have always loved about this man: his faith that I know what I'm doing even when I don't fully know yet.

What I've learned this week—or re-learned, because the body knows these things and grief just covers them—is that cooking is not just food. I knew this always. Bernice taught me when I was six: the food is never just the food. The food is the thing underneath the food. The love, the intention, the showing up. You can't separate them. You put careless hands on a dish and the dish will know. You put grieving hands on it and the grief goes in too, which is okay, which is actually ministry—feeding people your honest self, including the broken parts, and trusting that they can hold it. A bowl of greens big enough to contain a mother's sorrow is richer than one made in uncomplicated happiness. I believe this. I have always believed this. For four months I forgot and now I remember.

I made cornbread in the cast iron today. The skillet I got from Bernice in 1994, the one she got from her mother, the one that is seasoned to a black glass finish and weighs nine pounds and is the most valuable thing I own that isn't a person. I lifted it one-handed from the hook the way I always do—the orthopedic would say something if he knew—and I set it on the burner and let it heat and then I made cornbread by hand and by eye, no measuring cup, the batter right when it looks right. When it came out I cut it in squares and called Calvin from his study and we ate it hot with butter, standing at the counter like people who live in a house and eat in it and are still here.

The skillet is back on the hook. The cornbread is half eaten. The kitchen smells right. I am going to be okay. Not healed. But okay. Both things can be true. I am learning how to hold both at once.

The cornbread that came out of Bernice’s skillet that afternoon wasn’t measured, wasn’t fussed over — it was made the way I have always made things that matter, by feel and by faith. This Herbed Oatmeal Pan Bread is as close as I can get to giving that experience a form someone else can follow: a hearty, forgiving pan bread that rewards a steady hand more than a careful eye, made in cast iron, eaten warm with butter, ideally standing at a counter with someone you love. The oats give it heft, the herbs give it intention, and the skillet does the rest.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan

Instructions

Heat the skillet. Preheat your oven to 400°F. Rub a 9-inch or 10-inch cast iron skillet with a thin coat of butter and set it on the center rack to heat while you mix the batter.
Combine the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking powder, salt, sugar, rosemary, and thyme until evenly distributed.
Whisk the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the egg, milk, and melted butter.
Bring it together. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir with a wooden spoon just until combined — the batter will be thick and a little rough. Do not overmix. It should look right when it looks right.
Fill and bake. Using oven mitts, carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven. Pour in the batter; it will sizzle at the edges, which is what you want. Return the skillet to the oven and bake for 22 to 25 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Rest and serve. Let the bread sit in the skillet for 5 minutes before cutting into squares or wedges. Serve warm with salted butter.

Nutrition (per serving)

Herbed Oatmeal Pan Bread — The Skillet That Remembers