Sunday dinner

In my part of the country (Western North Carolina) dinner is lunch. What most people call dinner we call supper. I've fought calling the evening meal dinner for years. I just feel like our whole way of life is slipping away here in the mountains and I would like to preserve a little part of it. I'll do more sometime on the phrases we have that are unique to this area. Actually, we got them from our English, Scots-Irish ancestors.

Sunday dinner at my grandparents was always a special time for me. There would always be a feast on the table that was out shined only by Thanksgiving. Friends and family would gather to enjoy the bounty and the talk was always lively and lighthearted. Food, it seemed, was the bond that held us together. Fried chicken, chicken and dumplings or pork chops, mashed potatoes, homemade pan gravy, green beans, cream corn, cole slaw, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, fried squash, fried okra, applesauce, cornbread, biscuits, cobbler, pie, cake; I could go on and on. This was all at one meal too. Everything was grown in the garden and either picked fresh and fixed that day or came from the canning and freezing we did in the summer. My grandparents even raised their own chickens and hogs.

My grandmother was the kind of cook that everyone strived to be like. She was a proud woman and cooking was definitely her claim to fame. That and the fact that she was a geniunely good woman. She made the lightest, fluffiest biscuits that I've ever put in my mouth. Even cold, her biscuits were still soft and delicious. She made the absolute worst cornbread that I've ever eaten though. For me, it had too much flour in it and tasted rather bland. I don't put any flour in mine. Along that note, I thought I would give you my biscuit recipe today. Not quite as good as my grandmother's but very close. And no, it's not a healthy biscuit. It's just a good old fashioned white flour biscuit that won't kill you if eaten occasionally. I hope you enjoy!

2 cups self-rising flour, sifted ( you don't have to sift but my grandmother did)
1/2 cup shortening (Crisco)
1/2 to 3/4 cup milk or buttermilk (I start with 1/2 cup and work my way up)

Heat your oven to 500 degrees. Put flour and shortening in a bowl and using a fork, cut in the shortening until it looks like coarse crumbs. Add milk, a little at a time, while mixing with the fork, until dough leaves the sides of the bowl. If you add too much milk, the dough will be sticky and you can add a little more flour to make it right. Too little milk makes the dough dry. Put the dough on a floured board or wax paper and knead it gently about 5 or 6 times. Roll out the dough to whatever thickness you like and cut with a biscuit cutter or the open end of a drinking glass (floured). Put on a greased cookie sheet with the biscuits touching each other and bake for about 8 to 10 minutes. If you like a crunchy biscuit, place them about 1" apart before baking.

The more you make biscuits, the better at it you will be. It takes time to become a great biscuit maker, so don't give up. Your family will love you for it and you'll be making memories of your own.