This weekly column, “Adventures in Good Eating,” by Back Door Café chef/owner Fran Ginn appears each Thursday in the Marion County Informer.

……I relish the opportunity of finding something new and different to eat wherever I go. I love to explore why people eat what they do and how food has shaped their lives. Adventures in Good Eating is my way of sharing the pleasure of culinary discovery and also the anticipation of tables and tastes yet to be found.

A couple of months ago, driving home from Jackson, I felt the siren song of a flea market calling me.  This particular market is large, very neat, and always has an article with my name on it.  On this day the article(s) wanting to go home with me were a stack of cookbooks.  There are millions of cookbooks out in the universe and I seem to have a sixth sense about those which are supposed to live in my library.  Don’t ask me what it is……there is absolutely no rhyme or reason.  Somehow, I just know.  In this stack of cookbooks were a book on Gasparilla cuisine from Florida – yes, a 1966 date book with recipes by Samuel Champlain – yes, a community cookbook from Virginia – no, a 1940’s book on cakes – no, and a book titled Pearl’s Kitchen, An Extraordinary Cookbook by Pearl Bailey – yes.  Pearl Bailey, an amazing jazz singer from the years of my growing up, had written a  cookbook.  I picked it up, remembering how much I had enjoyed hearing her sing on a number of television shows, really not expecting much cooking, just a good read about a celebrity I admired.  I was so wrong.

Pearl Bailey was born in 1918 in Virginia, but moved to Philadelphia as a young child.  At age 15 she entered an amateur entertainment contest at Philadelphia’s Pearl Theater and won first prize.  A subsequent win at Harlem’s famous Apollo Theater convinced her that her future lay in show business.  She began entertaining in small nightclubs and eventually worked her way into a solo night club performer.  During World War II  Pearl took pride in entertaining troops with the USO.  She later teamed up with band greats Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington.  Her club career led her to Hollywood, Broadway and recording studios.  She starred with friend Cab Calloway in 1967 in an all-black touring company of “Hello, Dolly”, for which she won a special Tony Award.   In 1952 she married jazz drummer, Louis Bellson, after a whirlwind four day courtship.  They adopted two children, Tony and DeeDee.   They were a devoted couple, marking 39 years of marriage when Pearl died in 1990.

Knowing about Pearl Bailey only as an entertainer, I was so surprised to read in this book of her passion as a cook and homemaker.  The book contains recipes, but it is more an essay on her feelings about  cooking, love of her family and her home.  I want to share some of these thoughts in Pearl’s own words.  It amazed me to read some of my own feelings mirrored in her writing.

From the chapter titled “Sanctuary”:

My kitchen is a mystical place, a kind of temple for me.  It is a place where the surfaces seem to have significance, where the sounds and odors carry meaning that transfers from the past and bridges to the future.  It is that place in my life where the memories of Mama and Papa and my brother and sisters are located.  It is a place where show business and bright lights fade away, leaving my consciousness clear for understanding.  It is a room in which to find sanctuary in the enjoyment of the best lingering recollections of times gone by, a room where the circumstances of the present and the good or bad possibilities for the future can be dealt with…..

My primary ritual in the kitchen is an exercise of sharing.  It is a place where I cook for my family, whose images pervade my thoughts while I work.  I cook not only for my family and loved ones, but also for unseen guests, strangers who might happen upon my door.  Cooking is not drudgery for me, anytime.  During the festive seasons, I love to keep my house full of festive smells.  I like to spread the finest table that my pocketbook will allow.  It gets back to my feeling about the kitchen and food as a way of sharing and giving……..I love the days that I have at home, uncluttered by business – days when I can look forward to each mealtime with the ones I love the most.  In the preparation, I find my meaning.  And in the joy of mealtime, I find my reward.

When considering a recipe from the book, there was only one choice,.   I’m going to give it just as she wrote it.

“Macaroni and Cheese If I Say So Myself”

Nobody every has just a little bit of my macaroni and cheese.  Tony Bennett once ate so much of it at one meal he claimed he couldn’t eat for a month afterward.  Macaroni and cheese is my most famous personal recipe…….No matter how closely you follow my instructions, your macaroni and cheese will never taste exactly like mine, but we’ll hope..  I never made the dish exactly the same way twice, but each time it gets more divine.  I’ve had people come back to me and say, “Pearl, I tried it, but it didn’t taste like did over at your house.”  I could have told them that before they went away.  You see, no two cooks get exactly the same taste in a dish.  I’m not saying that one is better or worse than the other.  I’m just saying that each cook puts a certain amount of himself in there.

Now I guess I had better tell try to tell you how it’s done.  I prefer elbow macaroni to any other kind.  When I start to make macaroni and cheese, I make the whole roast pan full, because macaroni and cheese is good day after day.  I start with about 2 pounds of macaroni, boil it in the usual way until is about ¾ done.  Then I run cold water over it and wash away all the milky whiteness (starch) that will come off.  In fact, I try to make sure I get every bit of it away from the macaroni.  I even put my hands down there to separate the pieces so that the water touches every part of the macaroni.  There’s nothing worse, you know, than sticky macaroni.

Then I season the macaroni with salt, pepper and butter.  Usually 2 sticks of butter for this amount of macaroni.  The next important thing to know is that you should use sharp Cheddar cheese, and pretty good cheese at that.  The biggest mistake that most people make in trying to prepare macaroni and cheese is that they go a little short on the cheese  I use tons of cheese in mine, enough to go all the way through.  After, when the thing is done I know I’m going to call it macaroni and cheese, and not macaroni and macaroni.  Just chop it up into hunks so you can spread it around generously.

Once I have the seasoned macaroni and the cheese in my roast pan, I pour milk right up to the top of the macaroni.  By the way, when you’re salting the macaroni, keep in mind that cheese has a certain saltiness in itself.  So temper yourself.  Next I slide the whole thing in the oven at 350 degrees (do not cover), and cook it until I see the cheese starting to melt.  Then I take it out again and stir everything up real good with a spoon.  I want to make sure that the melting cheese goes all the way through the macaroni.  This is important.  At this point, I taste it to see that the mixture is right.  If anything is missing, I put the finishing touches on right at this moment.  Then I shove it back in the oven (still no cover) and let that baby just get bubbly brown until I’m sure the cheese is fully melted all the way to the bottom.

Now, of course, you can serve it hot.  Then the next day it’s better and the third day it’s better still.  When it’s cold, you can even slice it.  That’s good, too!  When I’m going to reheat it, I just dip into the roast pan, which I keep in the icebox, and get out as much as I expect to use.  Then I add a little milk so that I preserve that wonderful softness, and heat the whole thing up very slowly.  I’m serious when I say it’s better the second day.

That’s all there is to it, and there’s nothing I would rather put in front of guests than my macaroni and cheese.

To conclude, I’ll take a word from Pearl’s  forward to the book:

The kitchen is the center of activity in my house and it the center of my silence on nights like this.  It is the room where the forms of living seem to start and end; it is the room where I make sense of life, birth, death, work, play, hurt and joy.  With this book I reach out for an audience of people who love to live simply, people who understand about the mystical side of cooking, people who could join me happily in a good solid one-pot meal, a full three-course dinner, or just a plain cup of good coffee.

Oh, my, how I would have loved to join Pearl for that cup of coffee.