Amy Sedaris: Betty Crocker with a smirk?

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Mix all ingredients in large bowl; batter will be quite thin. On stovetop, heat a 10-inch iron skillet to smoking and water beads up and rolls around. Swirl the pan with 2 tablespoons oil. It should smoke. Sprinkle the pan lightly with salt. Pour in batter. It will sizzle. Transfer to upper third of preheated oven. Bake 15-20 minutes or until top crust shows cracks. Broil 2-4 minutes until top is brown. Turn onto cutting board, cut into slices like a pizza, and eat immediately.

It’s great with a cup of grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese and chopped jalapeño peppers, for Mexican cornbread. Substitute the vinegar in the recipe for pepper juice.

Any cornbread mix will do, I guess, at least in the South, but I now they change recipes for stuff in the North. The mix is cornmeal, flour, salt, and leavening – some combination of baking powder and baking soda, I suppose. No sugar. Sugar is a heresy for the cornbread indigenous to my micro-region in the most remote area of North Carolina, Stanly County.

Courtesy of John Newman

Bring all ingredients to room temp.  Add milk and steak sauce and beat until completely blended.  Chill over night. Turn it into a ball the next morning. Roll it in the nut mixture.  Serve it room temp, spread on a Ritz cracker.

Brown the salt pork and bacon in a pan. Add the beans and everything else. Simmer for three hours until they’re the color of a green army jacket.