All Souls Day and Baked Beans

The day after Halloween is All Souls Day, that is if you honor the important days in the Catholic calendar. There is a relationship with the ghosts and goblins on Halloween to All Souls Day. Pagan and Christian rituals often intertwine. In this case, both rituals take a sometimes terrifying but also enlightening look at death. Humans have always needed to mock and respect our eventual fate.

The abrupt introduction to the upcoming darkness and downturn in temperature arrived too soon today with the yearly ritual of turning back the clocks occurring on the same weekend as Halloween and All Souls Day. The symbolism of it turning dark a whole hour earlier in just a single day wasn’t lost on me. But a good thing has also come to the foreground on this otherwise solemn day. It’s a great day to turn my oven back on after a very long hot summer. It made me think of my favorite baked bean recipe, which requires the oven to be on for a full six hours. That will warm up my kitchen all day long.

I searched for the recipe from an old plastic yellow binder that was nestled between my cookbooks. It was a very old newspaper recipe that was printed in the Enquirer, a contribution from Nick Tolbert, the host and creative mind behind The Midnight Gourmet. He wrote a column in the paper and hosted a weekly Sunday morning radio show on WCIN. It took a while for me to find it among the many dog-eared recipes, but I eventually discovered its tiny brilliance glued to an actual recipe card, making certain that I had the original recipe so I couldn’t accidentally copy it incorrectly. It was just that good.

One day at the bakery many years ago, a very tall handsome African American man with a sultry voice asked for me at the counter. He introduced himself as Nick Tolbert, the host and creative mind behind a radio show called The Midnight Gourmet. Nick asked if I might be interested in buying commercial time on his show, which was performed live on Sunday mornings. I said YES immediately. What was included in this sponsorship was a weekly conversation where we talked, live. He started each of our ten minute sessions with the most amazing way of asking, “Sharon, what’s going on at the BON-BON-erie this week?” The way he said it always made me smile. I was a nervous wreck at first, but after awhile we got into our weekly groove. Being on the radio was fantastic. Who knew I could be sitting in my nightgown in our living room, dog at my side, while Karl was starting to make his weekly apple pancakes, all while Nick and I chatted about all things pastry and the food scene happening in Cincinnati by phone. I enjoyed those Sunday mornings and I enjoyed the recipes NIck posted in his weekly column in the paper. The beans, he confided, were his sister’s recipe. I loved them. This morning I shared the recipe with my friend Lorna in Oregon and my son in South Carolina.

It’s funny how I fell into celebrating All Souls Day today through a recipe for baked beans, which made me think about so many people from my past, some still living and some dead. I miss my husband Karl and his Sunday morning pancakes. They never taste the same when I make them. I also miss so many of the souls I was lucky to meet through my business, including customers, purveyors, and people like Nick Tolbert. Each one had an impact on me and the staff at the bakery and cafe. They made working so much better, as do the numerous souls I’ve worked side by side with who have generously shared their talent, fortitude, and interesting lives.

I can smell the beans cooking while writing this. I tend to be melancholic this time if year, but looking to the past today has been a great way to celebrate All Souls Day, especially inviting an old soul, Nick Tolbert, back into my kitchen with his recipe. Happy All Souls Day.

Sharon Butler, Co-Founder