Baking to the Blues

Don’t discount the importance of seemingly unimportant practices.

I’m feeling a lot like spring. Still sleepy from a cold, wet winter, I swing my bare feet from the bed to the old wood floor and stand, slowly. It is difficult to see anything, but I make my way to the kitchen, in the dark. I put the kettle on, wrap an old apron around my waist and turn the knob on the radio. Adia’s voice drowns out the rain at the window. My hips sway to her haunting blues. I throw the White Lily Flour into my hands and clap them together. The flour flies on my face and on my workspace below.

Chef Sean Brock said, “Biscuit making is certainly an art,” and I have to agree, but it’s so much more than that. Making biscuits is therapeutic. When I cut the cold butter, I cut out the negativity. When I work the dough, I work out my worries and to-dos for the day. I make a well in the middle of my bowl and pour buttermilk and hope into the mix. I fold the batter in and watch my dreams form, too. I add a little more flour to the dough, a dusting of inspiration. I feel for it with my hands and inside my head. I roll out the mixture to shape the biscuits and I shape my world.

In the end, when I sit on the porch and drink my tea, I find myself again. The smell of the sea and of home, that sets me right. The taste of buttermilk, a little bit of heaven melting on my tongue, well, that does it for me, too. But the gift of a clear mind and a full heart, that’s why I bake biscuits to the blues in the early morning.

Learn how to bake Sean Brock’s Buttermilk Biscuits

Listen to Adia Victoria (Horrible Weather & Stuck in the South were my favorites)