Minnie Pearl, buttermilk biscuits and mindfulness

In the past 6 months, as I navigate my new situation, I have spent a great deal of time soul searching. Mindfulness has been one of those things that I have really taken the time to develop, from meditating for an hour a day to dressing out an animal that I took the life to provide sustenance in the form of a wonderfully sexy meal.  In that time, the HBG and I have discussed family quite a bit. There is a soulfulness to our friendship that seems to remind each other of our grandmothers. My grandmother, Edith (MeMe) was a concert pianist, very much into the opera, classical music and art. His grandmother, I am told was this wonderful witty down to earth woman with an infectious personality who made these incredible buttermilk biscuits and never understood why he seemed to be attracted to girls from the Northeast. Here I am, a NYer (giggle). Somewhere in those discussions there was this quest to learn how to learn how to make biscuits. I cook a lot of things well, biscuits were something I really, really, really suck at. I mean show up at the table in goalie gear and a check for the dentist… ok, maybe not that bad, they were edible, but not flaky, and not anything like the biscuits I envisioned. My guru? He was so gracious and ate them anyway. I giggle because later that day he mentions that Minnie Pearl sifted her flour and used lard… I did not sift the flour and used butter. FAST FORWARD to tonight…

Tonight I made a very small pot of venison stew. It was just enough for dinner and to take for lunch. I would be the only one who would be eating tonight. I decided it needed some biscuits and I had some very nice leaf lard from the butcher in the fridge. I took out my own grandmother's favorite cookbook, found a recipe for buttermilk biscuits, and proceeded to make them. I thought about Minnie Pearl and what it might have been like to watch her make biscuits to learn from her. I thought about an encounter I witnessed my extremely impatient soon to be EX had with waiting in line at the mall. I told him that in he would never make it in the South, he would be ignored because of his behavior. There was no need for all that angst, it only invites more stress,  and not the results you would think. I told him to take that minute he has to wait and relish in the time he has been afforded to relax. What does what I had witnessed at the mall yesterday have to do with making biscuits? As I read that recipe, I found myself immediately making these steps in my brain on what had to be done and in what order at 10.000 mph. I was trying to rush the process, baking biscuits in a NY minute was not going to work. I had to "slow down". I did. I slowly went through the steps, followed the recipe to the T, sifting the flour 3X and remeasuring it, measuring the leaf lard using water displacement and the buttermilk with a fluid measuring cup. I thought about how when I learned to make bread correctly, it was a similar experience, slowing down and measuring/weighing exactly, the result was amazing. I rolled out the dough to 1/4 inch thick and cut the biscuits, placed them on a greased sheet, and brushed them with cream . The oven was very hot, 450 degrees and when I put them in to bake, it seemed like within minutes they were over an inch thick. Within 10 minutes I had these incredible, flaky, beautiful rounds that I could actually call biscuits and between my handmade bowl, the stew made from local ingredients and meat that I had procured myself, this meal was one of the most mindful parts of my day. I think I even feel Minnie Pearl's smile from heaven. I am beaming! I only wish the HBG could be here to taste them.

I guess I will just have to practice until then?