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10A I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com
Wednesday, July 3,2019
I only use one kind of flour to make buttermilk biscuits
By complete accident - some
thing that Mama would never have
predicted -1 became a good bis
cuit maker.
My buttermilk biscuits are so
beloved that Tink made a video of
me demonstrating how to make
these Southern treasures. You can
find it somewhere on YouTube.
“Oh, boy!"’ Tink exclaims if he
comes in the kitchen to see my
hands covered in dough. “Cathead
biscuits. My favorite.”
Until Tink moved to the Deep
South several years ago, he had
never, in his well-educated life that
has produced an astounding
vocabulary, heard the term,
“Cathead biscuits.” Now, he’s an
expert on them.
Mama was a good biscuit
maker and, importantly, her bis
cuits weren’t saved for special
occasions. She made a batch every
breakfast and sometimes for sup
per.
I don’t make biscuits like
Mama.
RONDARICH
Columnist
For years, I watched and
admired her skillful ease but I
could never duplicate it so I just
made up my own way of doing.
Unexpectedly, this has built a
small legend for me. My friend,
Erin’s boys, fight over who will
get the entire batch that I send.
Aunt Kathleen, one of the South’s
extraordinary cooks, declares they
are the best she’s ever tasted. Even
Mama proclaimed them to be her
favorites.
‘Tmfeelin’ under the weather,”
she’d say. “Would you fix me a
batch of your biscuits? I’ve got a
craving for them.”
One day, I’d taken her a batch,
hot from the oven. She slowly
savored the first bite. “Ronda,
these are the best biscuits I’ve ever
tasted. I don’t know how you do
it.” Pause. “It must be your oven.”
Honestly, they’re easy. They
have three ingredients: flour,
Crisco shortening, and buttermilk.
Here’re two important things to
know about my biscuits:
Nothing but my hands ever
touches the dough. No forks, no
spoons, no rolling pins. I mix them
up and make them out with my
hands.
Mama used to cut her butter
milk with water when making bis
cuits and combread. This was like
ly a holdover from her
Appalachian upraising, trying to
stretch the buttermilk further by
using free spring water. I don’t do
this.
I only use White Lily Flour.
Period. End of story. I started out
using Martha White because they
sponsored the Grand Ole Opry but
Mama said, “White Lily is the
best. It just is.”
Recently, a friend sent a link to
a story in The Atlantic Magazine
by a Southemer-tumed-New-
Yorker writer named Amanda
Mull who was lamenting the
impossibility of finding a good
biscuit in the Northeast.
“What flour do you use?” my
friend wrote.
“White Lily,” I responded. Then
I read the article which hinged on
Ms. Mull’s discovery that the
secret to a delicious Southern bis
cuit lies in the flour.
White Lily.
Let me borrow from the article
to quote Robert Dixon Phillips, a
retired food scientist at the
University of Georgia. “You want
a flour made from a soft wheat. It
has less gluten protein and the glu
ten is weaker, which allows the
chemical leavening - the baking
powder - to generate carbon diox
ide and make it rise in the oven.”
The article points out that the
gold standard of soft wheat flour is
White Lily, originally developed
and manufactured in Knoxville,
Tennessee.
My mama. The scientist. She
didn’t know why but she knew
that White Lily was the best.
Lollowing her advice many years
ago, I switched to White Lily and
that’s when I hit on the secret to
biscuits that double or even triple
in size while baking.
Tink and I went to the annual
Biscuit Lestival in Knoxville a few
years ago. There were rows of
booths that featured biscuits and
one flour company was giving out
five-pound bags of flour. I took
one because I can’t turn down
free. Lor two years, it has set on a
shelf, unopened.
Meanwhile, I’ve gone through
several bags of White Lily.
Again, Mama was right.
Ronda Rich is the best-selling author
of the new book, Let Me Tell You
Something. Visit www.rondarich.
com to sign up for her free weekly
newsletter.
FROM 1A
Laws
when they have dense breast
tissue that might make detect
ing cancer more difficult.
• House Bill 64: Concerns
notification of military authori
ties when active-duty personnel
are accused of child abuse.
• House Bill 217: Exempts
syringe services programs from
certain criminal liability for
possession, distribution or
exchange of hypodermic
syringes, regardless of knowl
edge of drug-related use.
• House Bill 218: Extends
the time period of HOPE schol
arship eligibility to 10 years for
students who receive the schol
arship after July 1, 2019, and
denotes rules for continued eli
gibility.
• House Bill 228: Raises the
minimum age to get married
from 16 to 17. Any 17-year-old
wanting to get married must be
an emancipated minor.
• House Bill 287: Gives tax
credits to community medical
professionals who work with
training students.
• House Bill 346: Bars land
lords from engaging in retalia
tory actions against tenants
who report them for certain
code violations or failure to
make certain repairs.
• Senate Bill 9: Establishes
definitions and penalties for
people who commit sexual
assault while supervising or
caring for others, such as
inmates or people under psy
chiatric care. Also establishes
new rules prohibiting sexual
extortion crimes, such as threat
ening to reveal a nude photo
online.
• Senate Bill 16: Allows
Georgia to enter an Interstate
Medical Licensure Compact,
which provides for fingerprint
background checks of medical
professionals, rules for expedit
ed medical license applications,
investigations, discipline and
related matters.
• Senate Bill 18: Allows
physicians to provide health
care to a patient through a
direct agreement without being
subject to insurance regula
tions.
• Senate Bill 158:
Authorizes DECS to care for
child victims of human traffick
ing and expands prohibitions
against trafficking for labor or
sexual servitude.
• Senate Bill 170: Requires
state-owned properties to fly
flags honoring veterans on cer
tain holidays and when Georgia
residents who are members of
the military die in the line of
duty.
• Senate Bill 184: Requires
state employee health insurance
plans to pay for services pro
vided by federally qualified
health centers at no less than
the same rates as Medicare.
FROM 1A
Murder
Deputies spotted Castro’s vehicle at a
home adjacent to his on Poplar Springs
Road.
“As deputies approached the car on
foot, Castro fired several gunshots at
them, but no one was injured. Deputies
could see Castro’s son sitting on his lap
in the car,” spokesman Derreck Booth
wrote in a news release.
Castro drove around in a pasture as
law enforcement established a perime
ter. A negotiator was unsuccessful in
reaching Castro by phone after multiple
attempts.
“At approximately 3:30 a.m., deputies
heard gunshots coming from Castro’s
vehicle. Sheriff’s Office SWAT Team
members immediately approached the
car and discovered that Castro had shot
and killed his son, then turned the gun
on himself,” Booth said.
Booth said no shots were fired out of
concern for the child’s safety.
Both bodies were taken to the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation crime lab.
Police for Gainesville, Oakwood,
Llowery Branch and Gwinnett County
'As deputies approached
the car on foot, Castro
fired several gunshots at
them, but no one was
injured. Deputies could
see Castro's son sitting on
his lap in the car.'
Derreck Booth
Hall County Sheriff s spokesman
assisted in the case as well as the
Lorsyth County Sheriff’s Office and
Georgia State Patrol.
“Lirst and foremost, our thoughts and
prayers go out to the child’s family, and
we ask that our community do the same.
During the course of this incident the
perpetrator fired upon the deputies, who
in turn demonstrated remarkable
restraint by not returning fire out of con
cern for the safety of the child. They
quickly contained the situation to ensure
that no other lives were put at risk, and
they undertook efforts to bring the inci
dent to a peaceful resolution,” Sheriff
Gerald Couch in part of a statement.
WJNNERlOFlOJJRlGRIlItflNGlIQTCONTESTiIi
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ChipKev
W&9L Vehicle
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A n -
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