You are not a winner at this time.

I have a new favorite website that I like to visit for inspiration of all types - there is photography, there are recipes, and there is well written dialogue...basically all the stuff I wish I could put into a blog if I weren't so big, pregnant, lazy and unknowledgeable about all things bloggy. It is in my blog roll to the left, but it bears it's own special mention: The Pioneer Woman.

Yesterday, while searching for recipes for dinners that won't get cooked this weekend (because it's likely my power will be out - but that's another entry altogether), I noticed that The Pioneer Woman was having a little "contest" to win one of two gorgeous 9 quart Le Creuset Dutch Ovens. The premise was simple: Post your favorite Thanksgiving food in the comments section of her blog for a chance to win.

I got all atwitter. I love Le Creuset and I REALLY love food. I could win a contest talking about food, especially favorite food. So the following is my entry into the contest, the one that would win me a shiny, new, dutch oven from Williams-Sonoma and make me feel special, since I never win contests!

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, because it’s not a very popular thing to admit, but…well…I hate Thanksgiving dinner food! Maybe it’s the pressure of making something so tasty that the memory lives on for an entire 365 more days (366 in a Leap Year!), or maybe it’s just that weird shaped purple jelly that people pretend to like sliced next to their mashed potatoes, but I’d rather grill a good steak than to get up at 3:00am to make sure the Turkey is cooked before all the football starts.

That said, however, I will admit that there is one dish that no holiday meal – memorable or not – can be missing: My Mama’s cornbread. Which, I suppose, is really my Gramma’s cornbread. Who deserves the credit, I’m not quite sure, but I’d gladly kiss their messy, cornmealed hands if it meant I got an extra-big slice off the round when it is hot out of the oven.

Growing up in Alabama, you’d think that cornbread was a dish that was a “tried one piece, tried ‘em all,” type of deal, but not so. Cornbread is a delicate mixture that requires just the right ingredients and just the right tools mixed with just the right technique to get it to turn out right. For example:

Some people – to my absolute and utter horror – put SUGAR in their cornbread.

*shudder*

So while to my husband, this is “cornbread,” to me, it’s just nasty.

Some folks fry their cornbread mixture like pancakes.

While this doesn’t offend me like adding sugar to the mix does, it still isn’t what I would consider real, serious cornbread.

No, serious cornbread is born this way – according to my Mama:

You need three piles of self-rising cornmeal with one equally sized pile of White Lilly Self-rising flour in the middle. Add your buttermilk enough to get it wet and then add about ¼ cup of oil. Then, mix it all together and add a little more buttermilk if needed until it’s a nice, thick – but pourable – batter consistency.

Next, pour it into your well-oiled, 70-year-old cast iron skillet (yeah, I am pretty sure that thing is made of magic.) Now top it off by pouring just the thinnest layer of oil on top before you stick it into the 425 degree oven to bake.

What comes out from that magic skillet is a delicious, golden brown round of cornmeal goodness – with just enough crisp to the outside - that begs for a huge pat of butter between it’s sliced layers, and a kiss for the cook. And while it’s not a “special” dish reserved just for Thanksgiving, since I’ve moved away from home and don’t often have the opportunity to have any, it’s what makes Thanksgiving special for me.

Unfortunately, she failed to mention that it was just going to be a raffle of sorts, or at least I can only hope that this was the case, as these responses were the winners of those $300.00 dutch ovens:

1 - Before I met you..(Well we havent officaly met) but I would have said a Bun :) Now Id say its the sweet potatoe dish-yummy!

2 - Pecan pie

My eloquently formed response would get me nothing but entry to the party, not any sort of bonus for my prose style or passion for cornbread, but I hope you enjoy my "homage to cornbread" just the same, and that it fires you up a little for next month and all the good things that come with a holiday season.

But it does make me wonder...what's YOUR favorite Thanksgiving food?