Succotash
noun: a vegetable dish traditionally made with corn and lima beans, though recipes vary by individual and availability of resources.
It’s a word people don’t hear much anymore. It carries a sound that feels ancient yet familiar as it rolls off the tongue, hinting at the long path it traveled to reach us. If you are old enough to remember the excitement that Saturday morning cartoons used to bring, then you might remember hearing it tossed around by Sylvester the Cat as he chased Tweety Bird through their usual antics. The word traces back to the Narragansett language, where it was part of a larger Indigenous agricultural design in which corn, beans, and squash were grown together in a system built for survival and balance.
Corn and beans each lack essential amino acids on their own, but together they form a complete protein. There is no way the Indigenous communities who created this system could have known the specifics, yet they built a method that worked with scientific accuracy long before the science existed. The combination is enough to sustain life through the hardest seasons. It is not a fancy meal reserved for celebration or ceremony, but a testament to endurance.
While succotash can keep a person’s body going, a smile can keep the soul nourished. It doesn’t feed anyone or repair anything, but it can shift the mood just enough to help someone get through the next few moments. Similar to how corn and beans supplement each other, one person can steady another with a smile, even if only for a short while.
That’s why I chose the name Succotash ’n’ Smiles. Some days you’ll find a fact, a story, or a piece of history that gives your thoughts something solid to latch onto. Other days it will be something lighter, like a moment of humor that reminds you your spirit still has room to breathe. But if we’re honest, most of the time we all need a little of both.
I think of this place as something between a back porch and a kitchen drawer. A back porch is where you settle for a minute, feel the air shift, and let the world slow down enough for your thoughts to catch up. A kitchen drawer is where you reach when you need something you cannot quite name, a tool or a note or a scrap of something useful you forgot you had. It’s a place to stop and get your bearings for a minute, and somewhere you can rummage and find something you didn’t know you needed.
Taking a minute is something most of us don’t do anymore—not because we don’t want to, but because the days don’t leave much room for it. Everything moves fast, and anything that isn’t urgent gets pushed to the edges. Even sitting still long enough to read something can feel like a luxury. That’s part of why I made this space. Not to demand your attention, but to offer a corner where time slows down just enough for you to breathe.
So if you’re here, even for a moment, I’m grateful. Time is precious, and the fact that you spent any of yours reading this is not something I take lightly. You’re welcome to stop in, take a minute, and recharge whenever you need to. Just a place to return to when you need a little basic sustenance. And if something here helped you, pass it along to someone who might need a little basic sustenance.
To Meet Grizi, the Kitchen Witch, CLICK HERE!
(Just so you know, she does smile, it’s just not her thing)