The Gift of Biscuits

Be a biscuit! Perfect your recipe!

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of Biscuits

“A positive attitude and a sense of humor go together like biscuits and gravy.”

Dolly Parton

The Gift of Biscuits

Biscuits? Biscuits? 

How are they gifts? 

Well, for many reasons…

They are fluffy.

They are warm.

They can be slathered with butter. 

They can be drowning in sawmill gravy. 

Or the tastiest jelly, like no other.

Biscuits have varying recipes to be sure. 

But in each case, they taste awfully good for those taste buds, of that you can be sure.

Find your biscuit recipe, perfect it, make it your own.

Whether that be the flour, the butter, the lard or the buttermilk.

Find it, make it, perfect it, and then share it so that others can benefit. 

Okay, Okay.  Before you roll your eyes.  You might be thinking, why Biscuits?  Why? Well, this morning I took a walk with my husband, which is huge.  I have had some real health struggles in the last few weeks. I felt so wonderful that I could enjoy the morning air that I thought, “I am going to make biscuits!”  I don’t know why walking and biscuits came to mind…. But… it did. I made them, with some red eye gravy.  They were so very good.  Now, I am not talking about the British version of a biscuit, ie… a cookie. I thoroughly enjoy British biscuits.  I am talking about good, old fashioned southern biscuits.  In my book that I am editing I talk about “Recipes from the Lord.”  I would firmly put biscuits in that category.  It is like the great Nana on high came down one day and said, “This shall be thy biscuit recipe, go forth and give its goodness to the earth.”  There are varying recipes and schools of thought concerning how to prepare a proper southern biscuit.  In my case you use: cold, I mean freezing butter.  You grate it on a cheese grater, use the flour of all flours… Bright Lily (for branding purposes I cannot use the real name) and of course either really cold milk or if you are feeling quite good… buttermilk.  The buttermilk gives it that little kick of sourness.  The oven has to be HOT, I mean, 500 degrees hot.  I mix all the ingredients together and cut the biscuits with my husband’s mother’s old, old biscuit cutter.  I then cook them in a cast iron pan that has been in our family forever.  Probably passed down from the great Nana herself.  Brush the tops with butter.  Yummy.  When I am feeling really fancy I will make some good old fashioned red eye gravy.  Other folks put lard (it rhymes with brisco) in their biscuits, some don’t knead the dough before putting them in the pan.  Those are called “drop biscuits.”  Other folks cut their fat with a pastry cutter, there are options with your blender.  But the main crux of the whole idea is that if prepared properly, biscuits are a delectable delight.  My husband’s grandmother used to make the most wonderful dressing I believe I have ever tasted.  She would usually prepare it during Thanksgiving.  In the place of stuffing, southerners usually make dressing.  In most cases it is made with cornbread (another recipe passed down from the great Nana on high). Grandmother’s was made with biscuits. I could eat mounds and mounds of Grandmother’s dressing.  When I asked her for the recipe she rattled off a few things.  I went home, used my biscuit recipe and well, it did not turn out right.  I remember calling her and asking what I could have possibly done that would have been wrong.  In her sweet Grandmother voice she asked, “Well, did you use butter or lard (rhymes with brisco) for the biscuits?”  I said, “I used my recipe, with butter.”  She replied, “Well, honey, that is your problem, for this recipe you have to make lard (it rhymes with brisco) biscuits.”  The Great Nana had spoken, I had to change my recipe for this delectable dressing.  After doing so, it tasted almost as good as hers.  I was not a Nana yet so I had not quite made the club.  Okay, so why biscuits.  Biscuits are like life.  Sometimes the recipe is so simple.  We stick to the same recipe over and over, which usually works on most occasions.  But, what if we need to consult the great Nana to get a different recipe?  Sure, keep the one you have.  Use it, and use it well.  It works.  But what if you need that lard, that pinch of salt?  More flour?  More buttermilk?  Or any combination of a recipe that will make your life situation a little better to taste or to take?  Keep the recipe from the great Nana on high that works for you.  But also, seek the recipe of others that gets them through life, the universe and everything.  Or, share your recipe.  Be that hug from the Lord to someone else.  My husband and I were watching a television show that is very good about bringing varying points of view into a panel that respectfully (for the most part) discusses issues around the world.  Can we not do the same with each other?  Share our recipes?  Share our flops.  Share that little tweak that will make the recipe even better.  Take that little suggestion that will make those biscuits so light and fluffy that the great Nana will look down and say, “Well done young one, well done.”  

My books are on Amazon!

The Quacktastic Adventures of Ellie and Lord Barks a Lot

Clean it up! Wash it up!

Coming soon: Appalachian Allegory

The Case of the Missing Honk Honk