Scrambled eggs, cheese grits, bacon, and cinnamon rolls – my breakfast almost every Saturday for over eighteen years. Mom and Dad would wake up and head to the kitchen, and as my sisters and I stirred from our weekend slumber, we would join them in the kitchen to help cook, goof off, and visit. We got older and grew up, but this tradition stayed the same. From sleepovers to hangovers, breakfast at the Claffey’s was always an event with our friends.
My older sister, Lauren, and I enjoying a signature Claffey breakfast of jelly toast, eggs, grits, and bacon in Augusta, Georgia. Pants were optional, messy faces encouraged. (circa 1989)
With three girls all within five years, we were constantly running around on weeknights, from soccer to volleyball to basketball practice. That’s why Saturdays were so special. It was our down time to be together. I think that’s why I love cooking so much as an adult; the warm memories I feel when I start cooking bring about a distinct peace. It’s my little sanctuary.
It’s where I’m not in a rush, where I make things from scratch and take the long way to make something pretty and delicious. It’s the place I allow myself to be truly disorderly and creative. Where messing up is OK, and sometimes the best memory can come out of a silly mistake.
In college, Ellen and I went to my parents’ house in Augusta for the weekend to study and take a breather from Athens. We thought it’d be cute to make dinner for my family. We decided on an andouille sausage pasta and a bundt cake, picked up all our fancy ingredients, and got to work. As we were making our way through the entrée and desert, we noticed our pasta sauce wasn’t quite right, but it wasn’t necessarily tasting that bad either. We watched as our cake baked, but it wasn’t really rising. We did everything as the recipe said and it should be coming out like the pictures, right? Wrong.
Mom has these big glass canisters filled with flour, sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar… you name it; however, they are unlabeled. And for all you beginners out there: powdered sugar and flour look a lot a like.
So we ended up with a very sugary cream sauce, and a cake that turned out more like a super-sweet pudding than a bundt cake. Mom laughed till she cried and we all ate it anyways. It’s one of her favorite stories to tell to this day.
Flash forward to almost-30 years old, living and working in the bustling city of Washington D.C. Even now, I still find myself retreating to the kitchen in times of chaos or stress. Whether it was when I was transitioning to a new job, or exhausted after spending days on the road for work, cooking really gives me joy and a calmness unlike any other.
It is my sincerest hope that you, too, find that creating and working with your hands bring you the biggest sense of accomplishment. That peace is in the simplest of tasks, and joy can be found by doing what you love, for those you love.
Enjoying dessert at the fabulous Requin in Washington, D.C. with my sisters (December 2017; Left to Right: Lauren, Leslie, Leigh)
