It was a cold and blustery day...

[Jolly]

Small things trigger memories...I was rooting around in the pantry, looking for something to go along with the pinto beans I was cooking and my eye fell on a bag of dried split peas. I didn't eat those as a lad, nobody around here did. Sugar peas were eaten fresh or canned.

And then, I met Henry Johnson.

God, his mama and the U.S. Navy taught Henry how to cook. Henry was our head cook - Henry would be insulted if you called him a chef - at our hospital for many years. I've eaten thousands of meals cooked by Henry. I've never had a bad one.

I like a man who takes pride in his work and Henry took a lot of pride. Black as midnight, shaped like a beer keg (and probably as strong), Henry always dressed in immaculate whites. Starched whites with creases in the pants you could cut your finger on. He always made rounds through the dining room, asking this one of the other, " How was the food today or did they have any suggestions for the menu?". He tended to take a place on the serving line when the mood struck him, making small talk as he ladled our plates.

Because while the dietician may make the menu, Henry always took it as kind of a suggestion. He cooked what he wanted, and who was the head dietician to argue with Henry? He ran his kitchen like an admiral on his quarterdeck and woe unto you if you crossed him in his domain. Henry was quick to tell the people who worked for him he brooked no truck or flapping gums and there were two way to do things - his way and the wrong way. I can only remember one time where a youngster challenged the authority of the old cook, and the end of a large butcher knife with the point up the lad's nose changed his entire outlook on life. Henry demanded excellence and he got it.

He made a good gumbo or etoufee. His beef short ribs were tender as a mother's love. Pork roast, beef roast, fried or smothered pork chops, fried chicken, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, red beans and rice on a Monday...It was all good.

But one day in the winter...On a cold and blustery day, with the rain and sleet coming down like only it can in the Gulf South, when it feels twenty degrees colder than it is, because the humidity is still hovering over the 60% and it seems like nothing is between you and that cold, wet wind, but one dilapidated barbwire fence in the Texas panhandle. A barbwire fence with at least two strands down, that is. On that absolutely nasty, miserable day, Henry would get an envy (ahn-vee' as the cajuns say). Out of the pantry came the dried, split peas. Out of the meat cooler came the hamhocks. And Henry cooked a split pea and hamhock soup.

He always served that soup in the largest bowls he could serve us in. He wanted you to not go away hungry. You couldn't, because inevitably there were pressed barbecue poboys on the side and peach cobbler for dessert. You ate until all the cold disappeared and you were left with that warm, inner glow of a great, but simple meal. Whatever the magic, suddenly the sky wasn't quite so grey and the rain wasn't falling quite as hard. It's a wonderful thing to be dry, warm and full, when the winds howl outside and the rain comes down with a sideways slant.

I haven't thought of Henry in awhile. I don't think he's still alive. I miss his cooking, but I miss the man even more. Henry and I have solved quite a few of the world's problems over a cup of hospital coffee at four-thirty in the morning.

I used to not eat dried, split peas. But then I met Henry Johnson...

[Mik]

Great but simple meals are the best.

[taiwan_girl]

@jolly Great story!!!

[Aqua Letifer]

A finer encomium would be hard to find.

My best-ever manager was a cook who was at the time a CIA student. Absolutely, completely mad. But knew his shit in the kitchen.

I use what he taught me every day, and I think of the mad bastard every time I pick up a kitchen knife.