Breakfast of Champions

I like to think of myself as a strong woman, a liberal woman. It is, therefore, somewhat difficult for me to admit that I often dream of becoming a Southern housewife. I fantasize about wearing a gingham apron and smelling the balmy, thick perfume of magnolias and honeysuckle as I set pies on the windowsill to cool. THERE, I SAID IT.

...I also daydream of running risk assessments on criminals and having a six figure salary, so my dreams are incompatible. The closest I can come to Southern housewifery is making biscuits while listening to Patsy Cline on a Sunday morning.


This particular biscuit recipe is courtesy of Alton Brown. His recipe is simply called Southern Biscuits, and it will transport you to a magical land with porch swings and sweet tea and all of those other fabulous clichés about The South, at least in your imagination.

The key to these biscuits is to work the dough as little as possible. When I turned them out on to the board they were lumpy as hell and you could still see large, shimmering flecks of unmixed butter in the dough. This is what you want! Like Alton says, just walk away! Just... walk away.


The biscuits were a mile high, tender, and buttery as all get-out. The only issue for me was that they were rather small. Next time I will likely use a 3 or 4" biscuit cutter, instead of a 2-incher.

To cut the heaviness of a biscuit breakfast, I decided that citrus juice was in order. In the winter, sometimes the only fruit you can find is citrus and bananas, and if you don't already know, I loathe bananas. I had grapefruits and tangerines on hand though, and in my opinion, a more excellent combination could not be planned.


While country gravy would be most excellent on these biscuits, it would not be particularly abstemious, and so I settled for a wafer-thin pat of butter and a drizzle of honey.

Alton Brown's grandmother, Ma Mae, is the most quintessential of Southern grandmothers, and she made biscuits just like these every day of her life. While that may not be realistic for the strong, liberal woman of today, it's an awfully satisfying way to quench a guilty daydream.