Comfort food for a rainy spring night...

It is late April, ostensibly spring, but it is cold enough that we have a fire in the wood stove and the dogs and I are happy to be snuggled under a warm blanket on the sofa. We baked a ham and it filled the air in the house with its rich aroma.

I decided that ham needed me to bake biscuits. I have recently discovered a new biscuit recipe that we are very fond of. When I made them tonight I was swept back in time 30 years. I was in the dark paneled kitchen of my college friends grandmother in North Carolina. Having been raised in the north by a mother who whole heartedly embraced convenience foods and thought Pillsbury pop 'n fresh biscuits were gifts from heaven, I had never seen biscuits made "from scratch."

I watched that gentle woman make biscuits with the fascination one might engage when watching their child's first steps. She had a wooden bowl that looked to be as old as time, and she deftly scooped flour from a battered tin bin with her bare hands, added a pinch of this and another of that, poured in some milk. In mere moments she had a soft dough and patted it out on a board. Small puffs of flour blew out under the dough. Next she twisted a metal cutter into the dough and flipped the discs onto a baking sheet. 9 minutes later I tasted my first home-made, southern style biscuit. It was love at first bite. And there was so much to love; the tender crust which gave way to a pillowed warm center redolent with melting butter. There was a bit of saltiness, a hint of sweetness and an odd sense of history and love all in that one simply baked morsel. When I asked for her recipe her face folded into a mass of smile lines. She had made so many biscuits over so many years that her recipe was a part of her, probably just as it had been a part of her mother and her grandmother before her.

I've been working to perfect my recipe ever since... handicapped by my northern heritage and blighted early kitchen experience. But each effort is delicious in its own way, and my patient family happily polishes off each biscuit.

Here is the latest family favorite recipe, feel free to try it yourself. I'd love to hear what you think.

2 cups all purpose flour
1 scant Tbs. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup shortening
1 beaten egg
Not quite 2/3's of a cup of milk

Mix dry ingredients. Cut in shortening. Stir in milk and egg just until mixed. Turn onto floured board and knead until no longer sticky (just a few minutes.) Pat out to 3/4 of an inch or so. Cut with biscuit cutter or drinking glass. Bake on ungreased sheet at 400 for 9-11 minutes.