In just a bit, I’m off to the air­port and on to Ten­nessee for the gath­er­ing of my father’s fam­ily, the Tay­lors of Taber­na­cle. Each year, 500 or so of my cousins con­verge on his home town from all over the world. We stay in unair­con­di­tioned camp houses, share two com­mu­nal bath houses, eat too much of the good old South­ern cook­ing that I love, and visit into the wee hours.

It is skeeter-bitten bliss.

I love the smell of rain-settled dust and old wood there. When I was a child, all the camp house kitchens cooked on wood-burning stoves. Wak­ing up to the aroma of wood smoke and bis­cuits bak­ing was heaven. I would lux­u­ri­ate in bed, antic­i­pat­ing the hot bis­cuits that appeared on the break­fast table with coun­try ham and red­eye gravy.

Gas ranges finally replaced all the old wood stoves. But when I catch a whiff of wood smoke some­where, and espe­cially if there’s a sug­ges­tion of some­thing bak­ing, too, I’m car­ried back to those early morn­ings on the camp grounds. Bis­cuits are my madeleines.