June 2003 Neighbors
Bebe Stiles says all of her recipes fall into the same general category: “just plain ole cookin.’”
That’s why she was so hesitant to be featured in “The Country Kitchen.”
“I sure don’t want folks to think I’m thinking my cooking’s anything special, ’cause it sure isn’t,” the lifelong Madison Countian says.
But her grandchildren, all 15 of them, beg to differ. Emphasizing that their Memaw Stiles could very well be the best cook on earth, they passed her name along to Neighbors as an outstanding country cook for the Kitchen. She reluctantly agreed to be in the Kitchen’s spotlight. “But I’m just doing this to make my grandyounguns happy,” she said.
Bebe and Billy, her husband of going on 63 years, spent four decades and raised four children on their diversified farming operation in Madison County’s Hurricane Valley. When Billy retired a few years back, they moved to their current home on Alabama Highway 72, between Huntsville and Gurley, “because he didn’t want me to be way off away from everybody,” Bebe says.
The classic recipes Bebe shares with us this month are among the Stiles clan’s favorites, including Memaw’s Fried Corn, which Bebe says tastes so good because it’s just the right blend silver queen corn and “that old-fashioned yellow field corn that you can’t hardly find anymore.”
Bebe also includes a Blackberry Jam Cake recipe that belonged to Billy’s grandmother.
“And he’s 81, so you know this one’s old,” she said.
But as everyone knows, great recipes are timeless.