Last night I made a Hungarian lentil stew with cornbread muffins. Miles went on and on and on (and on and on and on.) about the cornbread. "It's the best I've ever had...Oh my God it's so perfect. Even better than Elijah's." No joke. He actually said that to me. Frankly, I'm shocked.

Not that Miles isn't a nice, complimentary food consumer...he's just not so gushy-like usually. The cornbread, by all rights, should have tasted like a novice made them. (Because, you know, a novice made them.) Also, I never ever had cornbread (unless it was cloaking a hot dog impaled upon a wooden spear) until I moved to the South. AND, I loosely followed a recipe for a healthier version of the classic, so it should have been a little teensy bit blander than the original, I'd think. Perhaps he is buttering me up. I expect Paul Harvey's voice to project from the ceiling when Miles returns home. "And now: The rest of the story." Do wish me luck, won't you?

On a side note, do you know how hush puppies came to be named hush puppies? (Note to people living Northward: Hush Puppies are not only shoes, but small bits of deep fried cornbread, too! Note the similarity.) Sometime after the Civil War, people cooking outdoors would fry up these little bits of dough along with their dinner and give them to the dogs to keep 'em quiet. I imagine they even might have muttered, "Hush, puppy" while feeding them. That's a bit of a stretch maybe, but that's imagination for you.