Buttermilk Biscuits

Saturday mornings were golden when I was a kid, especially in late spring and summer.  Saturdays were usually unmapped and allowed to unfold as we saw fit.  Homework could be put off until Sunday afternoon, alarm clocks were silent, no church bells summoning the reluctant in their itchy finest, and of course, cartoons.  Hours of cartoons.  Saturday mornings were a time of peace and togetherness, a gentle sigh of relief, from a busy week.

I would usually stir when I heard my mother in the kitchen, getting out her sheet pan and rolling pin.  The scent of coffee tickling my nose as I heard it percolating, keeping time for my mother's Saturday ritual.  Cabinet doors opening and closing as she gathered ingredients, the tiny clinking of measuring spoons, and the shuff-shuff-shuff of the sifter hovering over her rolling cloth as the flour floated down like snow.  Sometimes I would stay curled up and snug listening to her, half dreaming as I awaited her call to breakfast.  Often I would slide off the bunk bed, pad softly down the stairs to the kitchen, and sit at our round wooden table out of the way.  I would sit with my feet dangling off the floor, my chin resting on my crossed arms, and watch my mother go.

She always started with the biscuits, and they were always from scratch (my mother wouldn't be caught dead with biscuits on her breakfast table which started off in a can you had to peel and pop open).  Usually too early for coherent conversation, we would mumble  our good mornings as she went about her business.  Cutting in the fat to her dry ingredients with a pastry knife, pouring in the buttermilk and mixing it to a shaggy dough, and upending her mixing bowl onto her floured rolling cloth.  The sifter would shuff its flour on top, and with a few quick strokes of the metal rolling pin (whose sound I can hear as I write this), she would have a 3/4 inch round of dough ready for the biscuit cutter.  Sometimes it was an actual biscuit cutter, and sometimes a drinking glass used upside down and dipped in flour.  She would cut out her dozen, transfer them to her sheet pan, and then take the leftover scraps and make a small hand formed biscuit;  the ugly duckling biscuit that I was usually quick to snatch from the basket when it was set down on the table.

When these were popped in the oven, she would move on to cooking eggs and frying bacon.  Awake now, she was a blur of motion.  Flipping, turning, seasoning, and stirring, between trips to and from the table setting places and delivering jelly jars, pouring milk and juice, and laying out silverware.  Sometimes we were directed to assist, but I most often remember just watching this weekly scene unfold.  By the time the biscuits were ready to take from the oven, she was calling everyone to the table.

My favorite Saturday breakfast was poached eggs with bacon, and buttermilk biscuits with my mother's homemade plum preserves and melted butter.  I liked to place the crispy bacon on top of the poached egg, and mash them together, a trick I learned from my father.

My family was at its best at Saturday breakfasts, all of us together, all of us relaxed, savoring my mother's cooking, and fueling up for cartoons, chores, and then a day of freedom.  I am forever grateful for those meals, and the hard work and purposeful love that my mom poured into them.

Buttermilk biscuits:

2 cups All Purpose flour

1 cup cake flour

1 T  baking powder

1 t salt

1/2 cup butter, chilled

1/2 cup shortening chilled

1 1/2 cups Buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375

Sift together dry ingredients

Cut in fat with fork or pastry knife

Add Buttermilk to dry ingredients and mix briefly until a shaggy dough is formed.  Mix sparingly to ensure the gluten is not developed, resulting in a tough chewy texture.  Flour the rolling surface and place dough down.  Pat or roll into a slab 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in thickness, and then cut out biscuits and place on parchment lined or greased pan.  Brush tops of biscuits with buttermilk, and bake until they start to brown (around 20 to 30 minutes).  Serve warm with butter and jam, or honey.