Morning Glory is loosely based on the life of the author. Names of most characters are changed, not so much to protect the innocent but to spare the equally perplexed… and to make a good story. Some characters are composites; some completely fictional.
The core of Morning Glory is beauty. It is a feast of freedom, a festival of heartfelt sustenance and artful creations, of organization, ambience, tools and the joy found in putting good food on the table and warmth in the hearts of friends, families, fans… and anyone who shows up for dinner.
The evolution that takes place becomes growth for the sake of art and art for the sake of nurturing. We follow the path of Glory Sugar Baker, growing up on the 200 acres of her grandfather’s farm, Sugar Acres: horses, fields, interesting servants and the accoutrements of “gentleman farming”.
Glory lives eight years on the Sugar Farm and another four in a home designed by her mother and constructed at the edge of the old cornfield, the Farm having been divvied up for development. Her father, known to all as James R, is a professional musician, conducts a local orchestra, plays music on a dark mahogany grand piano, and composes songs from initials of family and friends. He occasionally plays the organ for weddings and church happenings where he transforms Bali Hai and other equally off-beat show tunes into hymns and composes prayers of his own. Glory’s mother, Gloria, bakes; she creates elaborate clothing; she paints the rooms of her house different colors every year; she kneads bread; and she teaches Glory the art of kitchen-craft, of making a house a home and of the construct of art. An architect by training, Gloria Baker designs houses in her head, rarely puts them to paper, except in the case of her own.
Young Glory’s best friend is Michael Littlefeather, a half-breed Kikapoo and Farrier to the Sugar Farm. Glory’s relationship with Michael is looked upon as “unsuitable”.
As a young woman, Glory has a child of her own and goes off to California, where she enrolls herself in Art School, marries a man much older than she, grows her son, Michael, in the country, and uses her skills learned on the farm to rear him among chickens, horses, a garden and homemade everything, when at all possible.
Glory’s first involvement in cooking for others than her family is the creation of specialty cakes for friend’s parties. In the form of swimming pools with reclining blondes, castles, forest floors covered with edible flowers and a “shower of babies”, her cakes become legend.
But it is not until many years later, when she arrives at the Golden Gate Retreat Farm, that she begins cooking for others in earnest. At GGRF she constructs a 400 square foot tipi, which she faces east to greet the morning sun. She lives in this tipi and presides over an eight-burner propane stove in a 300 square foot “country kitchen”, serving three meals a day to GGRF guests. Discovered by Dr. Jaya Singh and whisked away to his spa, Glory spends three years creating menus for guests, establishing the spa’s basic nutritional program, designing the original kitchen and writing a spa cookbook.
During this excursion into the limelight, Glory cooks for movie stars, musicians, politicians and plain folk, all looking for care and feeding, some longing for a mother, some for health, some just enjoying the fruits of being in the entourage of the rich and famous.
Here she discovers that she herself is part Cherokee. Her parents are both gone to God by now and her maternal aunt, Tournier Sugar, reveals this surprise fact of heritage in a heart-to-heart moment of wine-induced honesty. The reason for Glory’s “Indian nature” and the attraction to Michael Littlefeather’s lifestyle and stories become understood.
After leaving Dr. Singh’s spa, Glory goes back to her beloved Silver Sage, where she manages cafés and, finally, opens her own, called Morning Glory. It is here she creates her most memorable and delicious meals and forms the idea for a second, and more intensely her own, book, and finds love.
This narrative, or memoir, is about the creation of beauty, the development of good cooking skills and the art of nurturing. Liberties are taken with layouts of homes, spas and retreat centers, their locations and characters.
The farm is quite real, as are the servants, Flossie, Bessie and Lincoln, who have long since gone to their maker and offer their glorious names to this story. The basic eras and endeavors are real; the recipes true to the time and circumstance.
In the carriage of Glory’s journey her muses, Fact, Fiction and Fantasy, go along for the ride, in deep and ongoing conversation. Fact, dressed always in revealing but too tight garments, is the voice of reason and does her best to dominate. Fiction goads Fact and, dressed as Fiction is in full-length mink, blessed as she is with perfect grammar and having a well-groomed person, Fiction votes herself most likely to succeed. Fantasy doesn’t give a fig. She drapes her voluptuous figure in flowing silks and wearable art, encouraging Glory to “look out the window, see beyond the trees, gaze at tangerine sunsets and taste spice on the wind”.
And so it goes: mingled among the memoirs of Glory’s life as cook, artist, mother and born nurturer, are her dreams, fantasies and romantic notions. She shares with us her wild side, her insides, her essential self, right along with recipes for muffins and scones and good soup.
In Morning Glory there are about 200 delicious, innovative, culturally diverse recipes, using fresh, organic ingredients and Love, the primary spice of this woman’s life. Also included are photographs taken by the author, as well as those of photographer, Peter Burt.
Glory Sugar Baker
aka Ginna BB Gordon 2007