Mommy’s Biscuits and Gravy

by Kalissa Reed

Dark red paint with a trim of displayed fruit wallpaper covers the walls of my little kitchen. Its stained hickory cabinets match the flooring. The only difference between the two is the cabinets are missing the markings that the floor has gained over years of raising kids, running from one end to the next, playing ice hockey, building projects, and dancing. A half-working stovetop, an old pot, an even older pizza stone, a pair of gentle but purposeful hands, and a warm heart is the perfect recipe for my mom’s biscuits and gravy.

On nights we would have breakfast for dinner, that same kitchen, infused with memories, is filled with my favorite aroma of beloved biscuits and gravy. As I got older, I became more involved in cooking with my mom. I used to just entertain, or distract her rather, by twirling about the kitchen to the songs on the radio. My mom will join in with a small shuffle of her arms, oh but when Bobby Day starts singing his 1958 hit “Rockin’ Robin” she adds extra flair. Each time she hears Bobby sing through the radio I watch her face light up as she tells me, “This was my song at the roller rink”. I can almost see her seven-year-old self, skating around the curves of the rink in the late 1970s. Like skating, navigation and practice are essential in learning to prepare a meal. Both the biscuits and the gravy in this dish have endured through trial and error to find the point of preferred taste.

To prepare the dish, all the ingredients are measured out. When cutting the butter into the flour, my mom makes sure to use a glass or metal bowl to prevent shards of plastic from getting into the biscuits. Plenty of our plastic bowls have experienced trauma from sharp objects in the past. Once all the ingredients have been incorporated into the bowl, creating a slightly soupy glutenous mixture, it’s time to spoon the dough onto the seasoned stone. It’s hard to believe that the pizza stone was a cream color many years ago; now it is browned with at least a decade of use. My mom leads with scooping dollops of dough. She spontaneously plops them onto the stone, valuing imperfection. I, however, try to form perfectly sized biscuits, delicately scooping each individual blob of dough and placing them one by one on the stone. I hope to one day value the imperfect nature of cooking just the same as her. Once done, in the oven our premature biscuits go, baking for 10 to 12 minutes, give or take a few.

While the biscuits are baking, we begin the gravy. The back left side burner is set to melt the butter in a saucepan. Like a dance, one of us is designated to consistently stir the gravy contents, preventing the roux from browning and the formation of a layer of milk skin along the top of the pot, while the other adds each ingredient little by little. After the gravy is completed, we let it simmer. The microwave timer goes off and lets us know that the biscuits are done baking. The heat rushes against our faces as the fluffy biscuits with crispy browned bits around the edges and tops emerge from the oven. My mom tells me to let everyone know that dinner is ready, so I scream “food’s done!” at the edge of the step between the kitchen and the living room. Both my dad and brother slowly emerge from their whereabouts. Sometimes I wave down my dad if he’s outside mowing. Running across the damp ground, my lungs are overwhelmed with the smell of fresh cut grass. Finding my brother is a bit easier, as he usually emerges from his cave of a room. Once gathered in the kitchen we fill our bowls, smothering a biscuit or two in the warm gravy. I like to leave the biscuit whole and smothered, my mom and dad tearing the biscuit into pieces prior to adding the gravy on top and my brother eats it all so fast I have never been able to see his preference. Within minutes all of the food has been devoured, and the time my mom and I spent together in the kitchen becomes another one of the memories clinging to the walls of my little kitchen.

Drop Biscuits

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 2 c. self-rising flour
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 1 c. milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Mix flour & butter – cutting it into the flour until it looks like cornmeal.
3. Mix milk into the flour and butter mixture slowly.
4. Add sugar.
5. Drop dough onto the stone with a tbsp spoon.
6. Bake 10-12 minutes.
7. While baking, start the gravy.

White Gravy

Ingredients

• 4 Tbsp butter
• 4 Tbsp flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• 1 c. water
• 1 c. milk

Directions

1. Melt butter in a quart saucepan.
2. Use a spurtle (wooden spoon) to stir in the flour – stir until the flour is dissolved completely in the fat.
3. Add sugar, salt, and pepper to the mixture.
4. Gradually whisk in the water, then the milk.
5. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly.
6. Boil for a full minute, then remove it from heat and serve.