That’s What They Needed

By the time Elizabeth asked for blue frosting, we had already had a fairly thorough discussion about what makes a good biscuit. She had helped mix the ingredients, worked cold butter into the flour, and learned why we wanted to cut the biscuits close together. She had even offered an unsolicited assessment of her grandfather’s baking.

But she still felt ours needed something.

We were spending the weekend with Elizabeth and her mother, Eileen, in Hoboken. Saturday’s plans included her first baseball game at Yankee Stadium, which turned out to be a pretty incredible day. Her excitement about the visit, though, had started well before we got anywhere near the ballpark. Eileen told us that Elizabeth had been trying to pin her down on being picked up directly after school on Friday. Her uncles were coming, and she wanted to see us.

When we picked her up, she was absolutely elated. We went to the park, and boy, did she play. From there, we stopped at a coffee shop before heading to a Mexican restaurant for chips and salsa. If you haven’t figured this out about Elizabeth yet, chips and salsa will get you a long way.

I had suggested biscuits and gravy for Saturday morning, but we weren’t going to have time before our day got underway. On Sunday, I got up to find Eileen and Elizabeth watching Cinderella, and Eileen immediately asked for my shopping list. We were going to make those biscuits after all.

Cooking is my love language. I love making food for people, particularly people I love, and biscuits and gravy were something I could bring to our weekend together. Shopping for the ingredients in Hoboken did briefly test my commitment when I saw the prices, but we came home with what we needed, and I got to work.

Then Elizabeth asked if she could help.

I hadn’t expected that. She loves art and making things, but it hadn’t occurred to me that she might want to get into the kitchen with me. I had been looking forward to cooking for her, and suddenly there she was, wanting a part in making breakfast.

Of course I needed a hand.

She stirred the dry ingredients and helped mash the cold butter into the flour, then mixed the dough once the buttermilk went in. As we worked, she listened and asked questions. When it was time to roll out the dough and cut the biscuits, I could tell she really wanted to plant the cutter right in the middle. There was all that dough in front of her, and she had a tool that would stamp a circle out of it. I understood the appeal.

I coached her to cut close to the edge and keep the biscuits as close together as possible. She wanted to know why, so I explained that we could gather up the leftover dough and roll it again, but the next biscuits wouldn’t have quite the same rise or those pretty, flaky layers. They would still taste good; they would just be a little more like clumps of baked biscuit.

That explanation apparently held up to scrutiny. She adjusted where she put the cutter, and we went on cutting biscuits.

I loved watching her work through it. She had an idea of what she wanted to do, and she wanted to understand why I was suggesting something else. Once I gave her a reason that made sense to her, she was willing to try it. We were making breakfast, and I was getting to know a little more about how her mind worked.

When the biscuits came out of the oven, she immediately recognized the ones made from the dough we had gathered up and rolled again. Those, she observed, were what Papaw’s biscuits looked like.

All of them.

Papaw had not been there to defend his biscuits, but I could at least confirm that she had been listening.

There had also been a question about frosting somewhere along the way. Elizabeth’s dad is British, so her understanding of a biscuit involved a sweet cookie, and she had been asking whether she could decorate ours. It wasn’t until they came out of the oven that she fully understood we had been talking about soft, savory Southern biscuits.

She loved them. She was less enthusiastic about the gravy, but I could live with that. Feeding someone you love does come with the possibility that they will have their own opinions about the menu.

And Elizabeth still wanted frosting.

She asked her mother, got a little tube of blue icing, and promptly decorated her biscuit. After all the mixing, questioning, rolling, and cutting, she finally had it the way she wanted it.

“WOW!” she exclaimed. “THAT’S what they needed!”

I had brought my idea of a good breakfast into that kitchen, and she had brought hers. There was room for both on her plate.

I’m glad we had the baseball game, the park, and all the other parts of that weekend. I’m also glad we got around to making breakfast. I had wanted to feed a little girl I love, and she surprised me by wanting to help. For a while that Sunday morning, we had dough to work on, questions to answer, and something we were making together.

I can teach her what I know about biscuits. I hope she keeps telling me what she thinks they need.

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