Vera Beck’s Cornbread with Cheese and Chiles

Vera Beck resembled one of those African-American matriarchs who, once upon a
time, were thought of as saints—a woman in her twilight years whose culinary
expressiveness was like a gift she bestowed upon the people she loved. In the
few short years we had together at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Vera taught me a
few life lessons while showing me the way to light and flaky buttermilk
biscuits.