Help needed for a lazy Southern cook

Hey y’all – I’m jonesing for some biscuit. I was going on about it all day yesterday and I’m still wanting it today. Mmmmm….biscuit.

But my biscuits are SUB-PAR. I have to confess:

Hello, my name is the Vol Abroad…and….[sob]…I can’t bake biscuits.

Now, I know I’m not alone in my poor biscuit making skills, but for the Southerner at home there are many ways to compensate. There are the fast food restaurants, there are those biscuits in a can (blechhhh – though flaking apart a Hungry Jack biscuit is oddly satisfying) and there are those frozen biscuits which are actually pretty good. And, of course, best of all there are networking skills – i.e. get to know somebody who can bake biscuits.

Sadly, none of these options are open to me.

Now, I know there are mixes that make kick-ass biscuits. For example, when a cousin of mine worked at a well-known fast food restaurant she stole some of the biscuit mix and baked it up for our Christmas eve dinner which that year was fried chicken and fixin’s. Mmmmm – they were good.

You can buy Bisquick in England. But I don’t like it. I mean, it’s OK, but it’s not what I’m going for. I want a biscuit that looks like this.

What dry mix do you suggest? I need suggestions this week, ’cause my dad and brother are arriving on Saturday. They live in South Georgia and East Tennessee, in case there are some regional specialties.

Southern gothic

In a strange way, this story typifies some of the reasons I sometimes miss living in the South and at the same time why I don’t. And I think it also proves that smoking meats is a great means of preservation.

No more Molly

Molly Ivins is dead. It makes me sad. She was an inspiration to me. Tough and funny and Southern and iconoclastic. And when I lived in Texas for a summer at the tender age of 21, her coverage of Governor Ann Richards and the antics of “the leg” helped nurture in me an interest in local politics, which sadly, still remains.

I’m not the only one who’s sad:

NewsComa

She made me want to be better, and have a hard edge with a smile on my face, ignoring adversity. She asked the hard questions, and took a beating sometimes. She never pretended that she wasn’t human, and she made me want to write editorials for a newspaper. She created an environment where she trusted that newspapers had an objective voice, against the odds of ownership and political pressure, regardless of shrill critics.

Katie Allison Granju

tonight I just want to say that Molly Ivins made me want to write better. She made me laugh my ass off many times. And unlike most of the rest of the American press circa 2007, she never, ever, ever stopped asking the hard questions, or digging deeper.

George W Bush

Molly Ivins was a Texas original. She was loved by her readers and by her many friends, particularly in Central Texas. I respected her convictions, her passionate belief in the power of words, and her ability to turn a phrase.

Did Molly make me want to be better? Nah. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t inspire me. To be even more irreverent in the face of local politics. An approach that now pays my mortgage.

Read more tributes to Molly at The Texas Observer

King of tears

Sometimes small things speak volumes.