Sleep

Never in my life have I been a napper. I don't sleep in cars. I have chronic insomnia. My kids' friends knew not to call after 10:30 because if I am asleep and get awakened, I stay awake. So what's with the sudden somnolence?

In June, on the day of Quin's birthday party on a Saturday afternoon, I felt pretty lousy, so I decided to try lying down for a while to see if I could pull it together a bit. By golly, I fell asleep, and felt so much better. Since then I have acquired a new skill, of napping. In fact, if I miss my nap I'm useless.

Yesterday I went down for a nap at one o'clock. At three I looked at the clock and turned over. At five I woke up and decided I felt like babysitting. Nathan and Katie, in true form, did not mind the last minute offer, and we had a wonderful evening watching 101 Dalmations with Annabelle and Grayson on the big bed. It was very much like I imagine Heaven would be, if there were such a thing. I have put up with a lot of physical abuse in the past few months, so I imagine that my body is healing from radiation starting in April to my spine, then surgeries in June, July, and August, and radiation to my brain in August. Sleep is good, and when I'm asleep nothing hurts.



Here it is, Mama's Biscuits!

You'll need:
5+ cups self rising flour. Don't attempt biscuits without self rising flour, unbleached if you can find it, and fresh.
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks butter - the real stuff - cold
2 1/4 cups buttermilk

A heavy canvas cloth
Biscuit cutter - I use a can with both ends cut out. I have three sizes.
Rolling pin, but in a pinch, a wine bottle.
Pastry blender - not absolutely necessary but it's what I use to cut in the butter. Otherwise a couple of knives or forks.

Heat oven to 425.
Sift flour with baking soda into a large, wide bowl.
Cut the butter into chunks, drop into the flour, and then use the pastry blender to cut in the butter until it's in small pieces. If you like a flaky biscuit that makes layers, leave the butter in pea-size bits. If you like a more consistent cake-like biscuit, cut it in until it resembles grainy corn meal.

Add most of the buttermilk and use a rubber spatula to gather it into a dough ball. Let it rest for three or four minutes to absorb the liquid. If it seems dry, add a little more buttermilk. You just have to practice to know what it should feel like.

Spread plenty of flour on the pastry cloth and dump out the dough. Knead by folding it over on itself gently as little as you can to get it to hold together. Then roll out (put flour on top of the dough and on the rolling pin) and cut, and put in a 12 X 18 baking pan. I let mine touch each other. Bake for 14 or so minutes.


Now, here are some facts. Biscuits are tender because they are made without developing the gluten (protein) in the flour. Two things go into this. One, the flour is soft wheat, which is a low protein flour, like cake flour. All purpose flour has much more protein and is hard to keep tender. The second is in how you handle the dough. Rough, heavy kneading develops the strands of protein. This is good in bread dough, bad in biscuits, cookies, cakes.

The size of the clumps of fat (butter) matters. As the wet dough surrounds pieces of butter, it makes layers. When the dough bakes, you have little pockets of butter that will melt, forming layers in the dough, and the water in the butter makes steam. Together this makes those nice buttery layers that let you pull the biscuit apart without cutting it. High oven temperature is a big part of this, too.

You can make biscuits on a work surface that isn't a canvas cloth, but it's a lot harder to handle the dough without adding too much flour. The result, if you're not careful, is a dry, tough biscuit.

When you cut the biscuits out, try to cut straight down, and don't twist. Twisting seals the edges and your biscuits will be dome shaped instead of cylindrical. Flour the cutter between each cut if you need to. I've never had good results trying to cut biscuits with a glass.

I use a silpat liner for my baking pan. You can use parchment paper, or grease the pan very lightly. I bake on the top shelf. The biscuit will not quite double in height, so use that as a guide to how thick to roll them. About 3/4 inch or a little taller is good.