215 replies to this topic

[Toliver]

I've never made biscuits.

Ronnie! I am taken aback and left speechless at this confession.

As for lunch, adoxography (can I call you adox?...less typing ), I'm with you. The later I can take it, the better. I think I've been able to push it to 1:30 but later than that I might as well go home and have dinner.

[ronnie_suburban]

I've never made biscuits.

Ronnie! I am taken aback and left speechless at this confession.

I figured if I buried it in someone's blog, no one would notice - DOH!

=R=

[adoxograph]

Nope, biscuit-making is a skill entirely co-opted from my Sister the Scientist. She married a sweet Nashville boy, and didn't have the heart to condemn him to a life without biscuits, and set about with charts and graphs and proper measures to learn herself some biscuits. I just reap the benefits from the fruits of her labors. Ronnie, you too can be converted!

Me, I'm a bread girl. So here is my bread confessional. My great Aunt Helen was a Taggart, which puts a direct line of decendants between me, and, well, Wonder Bread. Yes, the family line is tainted by sins against bread. So I'm trying to right that wrong in my own small way. I buy bread as rarely as possible, do all my bread completely by hand or spoon and persevere with my starter despite the tangy-but-flat loaves, the air-pockets-all-on-top loaves, and the loaves that come out well. It's been going well lately, maybe because I have this

It was my dad's mother's flour jar. The mouth is too small for a cup measure, but how could I not use it? I think it's helping balance the bad kharma. :)

[ms. victoria]

adoxograph, is your sister a eGulleter? Keifel (the hubby who I tempted into eGullet) and I live in Nashville. I missed the bit about Tennessee's succession. Oops.

[adoxograph]

Nope, she hasn't made her way on as a member yet - but I just got an email saying I can pass along her biscuit wisdom to those who need it.

I suspect someone's lurking....

[Toliver]

I've never made biscuits.

Ronnie! I am taken aback and left speechless at this confession.

I figured if I buried it in someone's blog, no one would notice - DOH!

=R=

Ronnie,
Don't worry, I won't tell a soul.


Adox,
Technically speaking, not being able to scoop out flour with your measuring cup is a good thing. Scooping flour can pack the flour into the cup giving a false measure, supposedly.

I am looking forward to your biscuits!

[adoxograph]

Yeah, but sometimes it's difficult to get the flour out of the JAR.

All right, the travel times say 67 minutes, I've got sunscreen, and I'm out the door. Maybe barbeque shrimp and biscuits? We'll just have to see....

[ruthcooks]

In the "small world" category, I used to live in Taylorville, IL in the early sixties where my ex and I worked at the local radio station WTIM. This was way, way before WalMart, and there was an excellent grocery store and butcher. Also an excellent restaurant which we patronized once or twice a month or as often as we had saved enough pennies. I think it was called "Country Kitchen."

The owner cooked everything herself, and I always ordered her fried chicken (battered and deep fried version) and special baked potato. The latter was baked in individual ceramic dishes in potato shapes. The texture of the potatoes was very smooth, almost runny, and it tasted of garlic, maybe a little cheese, very elusive. From the smooth texture you would imagine that some sort of mixer might have been used, but the consistency wasn't gluey. I never did figure out how she made them.

With the meals came homemade rolls that looked as though they had been formed from ropes of dough wrapped into ball shapes, willy-nilly, baked in muffin tins and dipped in honey butter after baking. Those I duplicated many times.

(After Taylorville, we both went back to school in Champaign. Before Champaign we lived in Chicago--and over 23 years in Nashville later on. Ole stompin' grounds and memories here.)

Enjoying your blog--and your humor!

[nessa]

MMMMmmmmmmm. Biscuits!!!! Good ones are hard to beat.
As for lunch... I'm a scarf it down whenever I'm hungry and get back to work so I can leave early kind of gal.

[Pan]

Oh and my sister in Nashville has informed me that yesterday was the 143rd anniversary of Tennessee's succession from the Union, and has insisted that I make biscuits with whatever I'm making for dinner. Not one to mess with my sister, rest assured that buttermilk biscuits will be appearing on tonight's menu. Just have to decide what else I'll make.

Secession calls for a celebration? You Rebel.

[Pan]

Oh, in answer to your poll question:

If I got to plan my own work day, I'd probably have lunch around 1:30 PM.

[Marmish]

Definitely a late lunch. I used to eat 7th period out of a 9 period day. Only two classes left to teach after lunch! Although it is late for the kids, they adjust pretty quickly.

[NulloModo]

I unforunately must eat on a rotating schedule, as I am split between two schools, and have arranged my schedule in such a way (due to my own stupidity mainly ;) ) that the two schedules rotate in opposite directions. My lunch tends to vary anywhere between 10:30 and 2:30 because of this.

[adoxograph]

Do you have any idea how tricky it is to download and resize pictures while eating barbeque shrimp?????

All I can hear from the other room is "Aw...aww.....ew...aw...euw ew....it's like poopy tentacles."

That's what he gets for playing Everquest during dinner.

[adoxograph]

Now that I've washed my hands....

Backtracking a bit through my day, here is the tea I made that kept me awake long enough to completely gross out Sarcasmo.


Here is my lunch, which provided me with enough vegetables so I didn't feel the need to make some with my fabulous dinner.


Dinner details coming soon, if I can get him to stop squirming and start downloading

[ronnie_suburban]

Are those cheetohs?!?!

You are so busted!

=R=

[adoxograph]

I confessed to the cheetos earlier. Now, dinner!

In honor of the succession of Tennessee, there were biscuits, which started, as all good biscuits should, with this


which with the addition of some buttermilk,leavening, a blend of butter and crisco, and additional flour because it's so ridiculously humid, became this


I don't work the dough much before getting it on the baking sheet. It's lined with foil to help keep the bottoms from burning


And the end result?


But really, what are biscuits without something to sop up? Inspired by the BBQ Shrimp thread, and the fact that shrimps with heads were $4/lb at Valli, we ended up having something like this...


And that's when things got entertaining. First, he asked how to eat them. After explaining, he took the bowl, AND NO NAPKINS, into our computer room to play Everquest. Conversational highlights included

"I got brains all over me."

"There's no way to do this with one hand, is there?"

"You know how I have that bones, skin, and gristle thing? How did you manage to work all of them into one meal?"

"This is the most horrific meal ever. It doesn't matter if it tastes awesome".

Dinner ended with him coming into the room where I was and politely requesting that next time, I peel stuff for him. I promptly did, with one of the last of mine, only getting the tips of my fingers dirty. He only looked slightly disgusted when I handed it to him.

To make it better, I made dessert.

I broiled apricot halves with a bit of butter and brown sugar, toasting some walnuts in the same stuff on the other side of the pan. I warmed some dulce de leche for the plate, and put the broiled apricots and walnuts on top.

I think he's better now.

I told you I was evil. :)

[ronnie_suburban]

I confessed to the cheetos earlier.

Sorry I missed your cheetos confession earlier, but seeing them in the picture would have 'd me under any circumstances

As for the biscuits (and the rest of your delicious-looking dinner)...*applause*

=R=

[binkyboots]

mmmm.... biscuits look wonderfull, I tried, but I think I have a genetic thing (possibly because of being scottish) where my biscuits mysteriously turn into scones 0_o some would say it's the same difference, I say bleh.

[s'kat]

I told you I was evil. :)

Bravo! You're a woman after my own heart.

Those biscuits look quite nice. I'm still fairly new to the biscuit-making process, and mine look nothing at all like that.

[foodie52]

Good biscuits are one of the hardest things on earth to make properly! My sister in law , who hailed from St. Louis, made the perfect biscuits every morning when she visited us years ago. I thought, no big deal....until she left and I tried making them myself. Every morning for a month I made biscuits....read, "hockey pucks" until I finally got them right. I've never made them again! We gained 5 pounds that month, too!

You have to have southern genes to get them right. I'm convinced about that.

[JennyUptown]

Wait...I'm confused. You cook dinner and then your husband eats while playing video games?

[Mayhaw Man]

Those shrimp look great!

And as for the peeling thing, many people (me included) just pull the head and eat the body, shell and all, but not the tail (although I will eat the tail on fried shrimp ). They are quite crispy after the oven/broiler and much easier to eat this way. I don't think that this would work for your SO however .

[hathor]

(although I will eat the tail on fried shrimp ).

OHHHH...my husband eats the shells too! YUK. I thought he was unique in the universe.....

Adox: you must train the SO. Deprive him of food, let scent of bbq shrimp waft over to him and when starvation overtakes his aversion to touching the peels, he will come to understand the tactile pleasure of ripping those shrimp bodies apart!!

I used to travel to Hong Kong with my designer who had an aversion to pulling the shrimp head from the body, so I would have to rip all the heads off for her. After, say 4 or 5 years, I had her finally trained so that she could do it all by hersef. So, if she's trainable, anything is possible!!

[adoxograph]

In a home with two human occupants and four active computers (as well as numerous unassembled parts, cords, and artificial intelligences) one can expect that there will be dinners not at the table - we're both cool with that. However, I knew EXACTLY what would happen when he took that bowl of shrimp out of the kitchen.

In fact, on my one 24 hour trip to New Orleans (long, long story - but it does involve a hero with a white Mustang) my friend Wayne and I ate ate Mr. B's Bistro. He had the BBQ shrimp, and, thanks to a number of hurricanes, managed to get the sauce everywhere, including on his ear, without getting a single drop on his bib. The waiters kept swinging past our table to watch.

I'm actually really impressed that no sauce ended up imbedded in any keyboard in our house last night. But yes, I knew there would be shrimp brains galore.

mwahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.

I haven't done so yet, but I'd like to say thank you to everyone for such wonderful compilments about the foodlog so far - this has been great fun! (that having been said, if anyone is feeling inspired for next week, PM me, or I'll just pick someone m'self).

This morning the heat has broken because it is raining, so the hot mint tea was pleasant. Traffic, on the other hand, was decidedly not, so I will sustain myself with a cup of decaf from upstairs.

Is there anyone left on the planet who recognizes that a coffee with cream and sugar is a coffee regular, or is it just me and Detective Lenny Briscoe?

[Lady T]

It's you and Lenny, I'm afraid...and Lenny just retired. I only know the idiom because I'm an editor, and I never use it.

I handle the mess factor for shrimp-peeling meals by simply layering the dining room table with newspaper, and serving corn on the cob (and blueberry pie for dessert). The meal is at the table, by damn, not on the sofa or in the bedroom, or anywhere else...or other parties risk my wrath.

In other words, the entire point of the meal is that Neatness Does Not Count for the duration, only the 'yum' of it all. Afterward, the (few) dishes go into the dishwasher, the newspaper goes with the shells and cobs straight into the trash (desperately needful: crustaceans' shells can smell really nasty really fast in hot weather) and out the door.

Forgive me for the waste, St. Jacques...but I don't often use the shells for bisque afterward.

Loving this blog!

[adoxograph]

Oh, and this afternoon I'll be taking a tour at the French Pastry School and will be joining some co-workers tonight at the Goose Island Brew Pub, just so your curiosity is piqued.

I just got an email from my sister - she gave my biscuits passing marks. Yay!

[Pumpkin Lover]

and Lenny just retired.

WHAT?! Did I miss something?!

Edit to add: Great blog, Adox!

Edited by Pumpkin Lover, 10 June 2004 - 08:13 AM.

[redfox]

I used to work at a bagel shop in Rhode Island, and it was amazing how many different things people meant by a coffee, regular.

Customer: Coffee, regular.
Me: Cream and sugar?
Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) Yeah, I said coffee regular!

Customer: Coffee, regular.
Me: Cream and sugar?
Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) No, regular. Like medium.

Customer: Coffee, regular.
Me: Cream and sugar?
Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) No, black. Regular!

Customer: Coffee, regular.
Me: Cream and sugar?
Customer: (looks at me as if I were insane) No, just cream. Not too white, not too black. Regular!

Et cetera. Boy, now I am experiencing some serious semantic satiation with respect to the word "regular."

[jgarner53]

I can't see the pic of the finished biscuits! Though based on the raw ones going onto the sheet, they look really yummy!

I just got my hands on a bag of White Lily flour (which, for those of you not in the know is low-protein flour from the South and, I'm told, critical for making really tender biscuits). There are biscuits calling my name from that bag. Maybe with lunch.

As for lunch, it depends on when I'm eating dinner. If I know it will be early, lunch will be in the middle of the day. Otherwise, I like it on the downward slope of the workday. Though when I was working 7:30-4:30, the downward slope was anything after 11:30.