Tonight I helped my grandmother make teacakes. This is such a ritual--the process of making teacakes-- a holy, spiritual ritual bound into the homes of Black women whose roots extend to the south--whether they be in the city or in the rural, teacakes are a Southern Black Woman's tradition. It puts me in the mind of the teacher from "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," with her nice, plump yellow wafers. My Uncle Lawrence used to love to have my grandmother bake teacakes--he said she was the only one who could make them as his mother did. Everytime he came to Prattville, or simply thought about it my grandmother would bake teacakes for him. His eyes would light up at the thought of teacakes. My uncle was such a delightful man who took joy in everything. My great-grandmother earned the nickname "teacake"(which eeriely makes me think of Zora Neale Hurston--what an odd coincidence) from her relatives. Alas, one of the stories I remember is my mother telling of how when she was a little girl and her grandmother would be cooking or baking this old white woman who was called "Aunt Francis," would come to my great-grandmother's back door and ask her "Sissy (what she was normally called by nickname) you got some food? You made any teacakes today? You know we cousins" My mother would be standing behind my great-grandmother and wondering "who is this white woman standing at my grandmother's door?" Cooking is such a spiritual process. I love cooking as well.