Mom's Biscuits

I always think my mother was a slightly conflicted cook. As a child of some privilege she didn't grow up with the idea that the mother of the house was the cook but rather the person who gathered the family into the car so they could go have dinner at the club. I think she liked to eat but enjoying cooking was something she came to later in her life.

That being said, with her history, she started out as a very Piedmont Virginia cook. Biscuits, ham, eggs - these were the building blocks of many meals I remember from my early childhood. It wasn't until I was much older that Mom admitted to me that she taught herself to cook from a Betty Crocker cookbook she received as a wedding gift. Thankfully the biscuit recipe in that book was acceptable against the standards she brought from her childhood, most particularly the biscuits made by Mother Connie's cook Josephine. After Mom died I grilled Uncle Les about Josephine and he didn't have much to say except that these biscuits would have done her proud.

I think of both of these women every time I get up on a Sunday morning and cut butter into flour by hand then stir in buttermilk and turn the dough out onto a floured counter. I don't cut them with a drinking glass like Mom (and I'll bet Josephine) did but I channel them both as I place my biscuits carefully onto a baking sheet and ensure they end up golden brown before they get served to my family.