A Portrait at Breakfast, June 3rd, 2014

Here, for you, is a portrait of some very special people in my life.  Its a picture painted by me of these incredible women that I love so very much.

2 Cups flour.

The basis of the canvas.  This makes enough biscuits for 4 or so people with a few left over depending.  Its the start of almost all biscuit recipes you would find online.  

Buttermilk Powder

With this I add the image of my Aunt Rosey.  She always made the tangiest buttermilk biscuits.  Buttermilk today is not made like buttermilk of the old days.  Now they use acids to manipulate milk.  Buttermilk powder is made from real buttermilk, and lets you add more tang without making soggy biscuits.  I could not tell you how much I put in, I just add until it looks right, its a shade of cream it makes the flour turn.  I hate Buttermilk with a passion and Rosey's biscuits were the only way I ever liked it.  Its pretty funny since the whole reason I hate buttermilk is because I put some into some corn-pops at her home one time when I was probably 3 or 4 years old.

A pinch of salt, table spoon of melted butter.

Do this to taste.  I happen to like salty even if I'm having jam with my biscuits, so I probably add more than some people, maybe less than you, its just whatever you like.  I add the butter because biscuits need a little bit of that butter taste no matter what you're planning on eating inside them.

Mayonnaise

With a big spoonful of Mayo I paint my Aunt Bobby.  Butter might be the best tasting, but it can leave a very dense and heavy biscuit.  Shortening and/or lard makes the flakiest because it melts the latest in the bake, but are extremely bad for you unless you're plowing a field later that day.  Mayonnaise is the perfect "in between" of those two extremes.  I dislike mayo, and Bobby's biscuits made me re-evaluate it as an ingredient in cooking.  Now several of the things I cook absolutely need mayo to be "right".

1/2 water and 1/2 whole Milk

The amount is up to you.  I do it to just get spongey.  I work my hands through it and it sticks all over my hands, but I work it for about 2 minutes making sure everything gets worked in.  It resembles something close to a donut dough.  Then, right before I form them by hand and then cut them with a large cup, I dust them with lots of loose flour.  I learned to do this when I learned to make english muffins.  The texture and the hand worked dough is where my mother and my grandmother are painted, front and center.  I don't even try, they are built in through the feel and the thought of what a biscuit should be, smiling at me because they love me.

This is how at every breakfast I have biscuits, I have my family there even if I'm eating alone.

June 3rd, 2014

I started Shadow of the Colossus, one of the games I should have played through many a year ago.  I played and bought several copies of Ico to give to friends and play Ico.  If you did not know, the same genius that made Ico is the one that made Shadow of the Colossus, and one look at the style and the "cultures" in the games will let you know that they are related somehow.  I think I may try at most 2 Colossi a play.  There are no in between monsters, or trash mobs to occupy space; its you, your horse, and the giant bosses that also serve as "levels".  Each is a puzzle, a run and jump and momentum riddle you have to solve in order to defeat the enemy.  Its beautiful, understated and some of the best games ever created.  Unfortunately I have at least one "twist" ruined for me by someone, so I don't know if emotionally the game will pan out anything special for me, but at least gameplay wise it should be spectacular.

Flick of the Switch and Fly on the Wall get the most crap from ACDC critics, but honestly I think they are better made than a couple of their early albums.  Flick of the Switch has song identity problems for sure, but by Fly on the Wall the group was really trying to vary a lot their sounds.  I've said before Rising Power, Bedlam in Belgium and Landslide were some pretty good songs.  Fly on the Wall adds a couple as well: Danger, Hell or Highwater, and Shake your Foundations are pretty damn good, but Stand Up is as good as anything ever put out in the 1980's when it comes to classic rock.  I do not understand the hatred for these albums.  With this I'm done with the maligned "self produced" albums that came out after Mutt Lange left the team.  Next up will be ACDC trying to put the band back together after a couple of members leaving, and Malcolm having to check into alcoholism treatment.  This leads to the more favored "Blow Up Your Video", and the critically acclaimed and much loved come back album, "The Razor's Edge"