I have tried and tried but I just cannot make my Grammy’s buttermilk biscuits. She is a good ole southern gal that knows how to cook. She’s old school and cooks everything from scratch. One day I was eating at Gram’s and she had made brown beans, meatloaf, green beans, biscuits (at my request) and cabbage. I didn’t eat much because I was on a diet but I did load up on that cabbage. I asked her what she did to make it so good. Her two word reply makes me laugh to this day “bacon grease”. DAMMIT!


She is in another state so one day a few years ago I called her and asked her how to make biscuits. “Ok” she said “add a pinch of salt and a little bit a butter to some self-risin’ flour” I had to stop her. How in the hell do you measure a “little bit a?” She laughed and told me that the next time I was in town that we would make them together and she would do her usual routine and I could measure the ingredients.

My cooking class went well and I was very confident that when we got home my husband could have Gram’s biscuits anytime he wanted. WRONG! I called Gram after my first batch. They were rock hard but not done in the center and they weren’t pretty like Gram’s. They were Ellie Mae Clampett biscuits and could have been used as weapons. Gram was telling me to heat the oven as hot as it would go but it seems to me that the oven was too hot.

That day I tried a few more times then went to sit with my husband in the living room. I had flour all over me and was ready to cry when he said “get your ass back in the kitchen, flour is cheap”. We both busted out laughing.

Tonight I tried again and came a little closer. I have a new oven and it was my first attempt with it. They still weren’t as pretty as Grams. In fact, they were really, really ugly! They were done on the outside but just a little too moist in the center. I put them back in the oven for a few minutes and remembered to get them out when I smelled them burning. geez!

I’ll keep trying.