Biscuit Recipe

My biscuit recipe:

Make them for yourself and
for someone you love...

Preheat oven to 450
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter
2/3- 1 cup milk

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center; add milk. Stir just till dough clings together. On a lightly floured surface, knead dough gently. Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter. Transfer biscuits to baking sheet. If you spray your baking sheet with Pam, the biscuit bottoms will be nice and crispy. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 10 or 12 minutes or till golden.

"Biscuits"--Revised

BISCUITS

Things in your house
wait patiently for you
to touch them--flour,
butter, thin air.

Cooking is an alchemy
of sadness and desire.
Do it from scratch.
You can.
You already know how.

Sift dry things
into a glass bowl.
Use more sugar
than it says.
There is not enough
sweetness in the world.

Butter must be cold.
It is like your heart,
like your hands, cold.
In your case maybe
numb, too, from loss
and grief.

Chop butter into fragments.
Yes, things go to pieces.
It has always been this way.
Consider the gods
whose flesh was torn for the people.

Add milk, about a cup of that.
It came from a mother's warm body.
Knead. Press.
Fold dough into dough.
It will become resilient, alive
beneath your hands.

The only proper shape
for biscuits is the circle,
infinity's shape,
the snake biting its tail,
the moon before it loses
itself to darkness again.

They will rise like Lazarus!
Just wait. They will.
Oh, wait.
Wait.
Just wait and see.

For Those Who Presently Don't Want to Cook

Biscuits

Not those out of a can or box
but those that come together
from raw materials you have
around the house, things
waiting patiently for you to touch them.

You will make them from flour,
butter, and thin air, these biscuits,
from an anchemy of sadness
and desire, this bread.

Maybe somebody told you once
you are not capable of making
biscuits the old-fashioned way,
probably due to some genetic
deficiency on your part. Do not listen.
Do not listen to them.
The way is ancient:
you can do it. You already know how.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt
into a clear glass bowl: sugar, too.
Put in more sugar than it says to.
There is not enough sweetness
in the world.

It is important that the butter is cold.
The butter is like your heart, maybe,
icy with rage. After all, there is a wind blowing
across some vast emptiness inside you.
Or the butter is like your hands, maybe,
which are also cold, which are also numb
from loss and grief.

Take something you usually chop with.
Cut the butter into fragments.
They will cover themselves in flour,
which is the staff of life.
Adding milk is the final step,
a cup or so of that white magic
that comes from a mother's warm body.

You must knead, now. This is the best part.
Press the dough; fold it into itself.
It will become resilient and
alive beneath your hands.

Roll the dough out.
Cut from it the most perfect circles.
The circle is the shape of infinity;
it is the shape of a snake biting
its own tail, of the moon before
it begins to lose itself to darkness again.
The fire in your oven will make them
rise like Lazarus!
They will be delicious.
Just wait, oh just wait and see.

--------------------------------------------


My biscuit recipe:
Make them for yourself and
for someone you love...

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter
2/3- 1 cup milk

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center; add milk. Stir just till dough clings together.

On a lightly floured surface, knead dough gently. Roll dough to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter. Transfer biscuits to baking sheet. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 10 or 12 minutes or till golden.

13 Ways

1. I start the Nan. I make the dough so it can rise while I prepare the rest of the meal. I use my best Nan recipe. It calls for a half-cup of plain yogurt. This makes the bread flavorful and soft. To the yogurt you add ¾ cup boiling water and a package of dry yeast, a tablespoon of sugar, salt to taste, ¼ cup butter, a large egg. Mix it all around. Then put in your flour, 3 cups, unbleached. It will be soft and sticky. Knead it until it is smooth. Oil on the hands works good for this.

2. You have to let it rise until double. The back of the cook stove works good for this. Your partner has the house nice and warm, although it is cold and snowing outside. He has lots of wood stacked inside the house. Wood stoves make the best heat. A warm house makes better bread.

3. It takes a lot of onion to make good curry, about two cups. I peel two large onions and dice them, cooked them in oil until brown. I grate the ginger. Have you ever tasted freshly grated ginger? It is pungent and hot. It burns your tongue. Once you have tasted it you won’t want to use ginger from a jar. Then all the spices! Cumin, turmeric, ground red pepper, paprika, garlic, coriander. Add the tomatoes, blended smooth. Add meat, if you like, lamb, chicken, or beef. Add a little water. Cook for an hour and half.

4. When it’s done, make the spinach. Add onions to the spinach and lots of spice.

5. Add the spinach to the curry.

6. Make the rice. It has to be basmati. There is no other kind of rice, is there? To the water add some turmeric, a little bit of fennel, flax, and coriander seeds. Boil. Put in the rice and wait. It’s hard to wait, I know, but you will be busy. You still need to fix the Nan.

7. Punch down your dough and shape the Nan. You will have eight rounds. Bake them at 500 degrees for about 5 minutes. Try to brown them on both sides.

8. Now the rice is ready.

9. Put it all on the table in pretty dishes. Play music by Ravi Shankar. Taj Mahal Beer is the best. But if you don’t have that, try champagne. It doesn't have to be expensive champagne. Ours isn't.

10. Don’t eat too fast, even though you are hungry. Savor it. This has all taken about five hours to do. Don’t rush the actual eating part of it.

11. The champagne will make you laugh. You will clinck your glasses together and make toasts to the two of you. Your partner will eat the bread and tell you to smell the bread. It smells like life, he will say. It smells like you, he will say. Ravi Shankar will be playing in the background. Every time you listen to Ravi Shankar you realize how whole his music makes you feel.

12. Smile when your partner tells you it’s days like this that remind you what a good life you have.

13. Don’t forget about your after-dinner treat. Yogurt, mango, sugar and ice make something called a lasse. This goes will with the movie you watch together, Satyajit Ray’s The World of Apu.

Gathering Wood

We bought our first batch of wood for Winter today. We are late doing this and are lucky to have found some. Allen came home with the wood at around 5:30. I went out and kept him company a while as he stacked. Inside, supper was cooking in the oven: one of my infamous casseroles made from whatever I could find in the house. It felt like when we were first married.

All that wood. Preparation for rough and raw days ahead.

All that possiblity.