Regarding the Dec. 2 letter, “On cornbread, Southerners know best”:
Though I appreciate Jiffy mix’s convenience, excellent from-scratch cornbread is quick to make, especially using just one 2-cup Pyrex to measure dry and then wet ingredients.
My Southern Virginia grandmother (who was born in 1894) combined finely ground white cornmeal, clabbered milk from Bossy the family cow, and lard or Crisco, forming a dense mixture she shaped into three pones fitted onto a round cast-iron griddle. This crust-forward bread hot from the oven was a staple of my childhood summer lunches. Any leftovers fed the chickens and hogs, and sometimes a possum.
During Thanksgiving week, I made cornbread almost daily — with some variations. (Bossy is long a memory.)
Here’s how: Early in the day, combine medium-grind yellow cornmeal, a bit of coarsely ground cornmeal for texture, whole oats, baking powder and soda. Then beat together eggs, neutral oil and buttermilk and set aside.
When it’s almost mealtime, put butter in a seasoned cast-iron skillet into the oven. While it heats, mix the wet ingredients into the dry and watch it rise. When the oven is hot and the butter browned, pour batter into the skillet and return it to the oven. Don’t let the smoke alarm blaring from the smoking butter faze you.
Leftover cornbread, if there is any, can become breadcrumbs topping a casserole or adding texture to soup.
Joy M. Oakes, Arlington
Priced out of Penn Quarter
I am a longtime fan of Tom Sietsema’s restaurant reviews and already an admirer of The Post’s new restaurant critic, Elazar Sontag. But I was stunned to read the Dec. 19 Going Out Guide article “8 of Penn Quarter’s best restaurants.” With not even one skeptical comment or indication of a raised eyebrow, Warren Rojas’s roundup, which included some of Sietsema’s “dining tips,” was dominated by restaurants with entrées priced way out of range for customers like me.
Fiola’s entrées are listed at $52 to $120; Jaleo (one of my past favorites) has entrées at $69 to $250; Zaytinya’s are shown to be $55 to $125; and Minibar’s tasting menus are shown to be $350 to $525. I’m certain that many of the District’s diners wouldn’t hesitate at spending that kind of money on a meal out, but I’m also confident that many more of your readers would never consider it, not even for a “special occasion.”
Harris Factor, Columbia
‘Guys and Dolls’ isn’t dated enough
Is “Guys and Dolls” “hopelessly outdated”? Does it need to be brought in line with contemporary political sensibilities?
These are the provocations that a reader might infer from the Dec. 10 Style review “Still a sure bet” of the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production.
In the context of a generous and overall complimentary review, Naveen Kumar noted that “the misogyny shot through the 1950 gangster rom-com is as tacky and stale as an old pinstripe suit.” It is true that the plot hinges on degenerate gambling. But it also showcases strong-willed women who challenge the men in their lives to reform themselves.
Bob Fosse once called “Guys and Dolls” “the greatest American musical of all time.” And that’s saying something. The Golden Age Broadway musical is America’s classical theatrical form, our own nation’s equivalent to previous golden eras in ancient Athens and Elizabethan London.
Many of those classics were written by Jews, LGBTQ+ individuals and children of immigrants and engage deeply with social justice issues. “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” from “South Pacific” is a powerful anti-racist anthem. “The Sound of Music” challenged the ideology of Nazism — and shocked audiences by putting swastikas on a Broadway stage. “Fiddler on the Roof” imagined life in an Eastern European shtetl at a time when the totalitarianism of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin had wiped those locations off the map, along with millions of lives.
Maybe the problem with “Guys and Dolls” is that it isn’t dated enough. Our pop cultural love affair with gangsters and con artists shows no sign of abating. “Guys and Dolls” does what all great works of art do. It doesn’t tell us what to think; it shows us what we should be thinking about.
Drew Lichtenberg, Washington
The writer is an artistic producer at the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
JMU’s best asset
I read the Dec. 19 Sports article “The big business behind each CFP team” with great interest. Sadly, the article focused only on James Madison University’s backup transfer quarterback Matt Sluka. The article should have included mention of JMU’s outstanding starting quarterback, Alonza Barnett III, who led the Dukes into the playoffs.
Barnett was the Sun Belt Conference player of the year and threw 49 touchdown passes and only 13 interceptions in his two years as JMU’s starter. His efforts this year helped result in a team record of 12-2. He also led the team to a 70-50 win over the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In that game, Barnett scored five passing and two running touchdowns while throwing for 388 yards and rushing for 99 yards.
Tom Ryan, Annandale
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