Birthday

I suspect there's some sort of unwritten, unspoken pact among food bloggers that one Must Not Criticize Tropes in Food Blogging, but I'll happily violate that pact in order to reiterate that I hate it when (heterosexual) lady food bloggers are all disgusting about men. Offering details about your husband and kids and what their favorite foods are is one thing. Lengthy discourses on tricking your little sweeties into eating vegetables by baking spinach into brownies (Hats off, gentlewomen, a genius!!!) or how you use food to find and keep a dude in your life? No.

I bring this up because it was Andy's birthday this week, and he's here this weekend for a post-my-exam visit. Of course, this means that I find it necessary to take it upon myself to make something he likes, in this case, biscuits. Not the fluffy, shortbread-style biscuits I made for Easter; no, no, these are your traditional flaky Southern biscuits best enjoyed with some other lipid melting on its piping hot inner surface (oh, sausage gravy, how I miss you!).

At the risk of being totally nauseating, we had a picnic with said biscuits, as well as other of our mutual favorite foods: cheddar cheese, spinach salad with fresh basil, strawberries and balsamic vinaigrette, fruit (my personal vice), and crudités (which Andy insists on pronouncing "crud-ites"). Dessert was browned butter chocolate chip cookies, another of Andy's perpetual favorites.

Pillowy on the outside...

...flaky on the inside!

I highly recommend this biscuit-strawberry jam-cheddar cheese combination.

I'm going to distract myself from such thoughts as "seriously, why are you so disgustingly performative about your relationship?" and "please, cram yourself into more stereotypes" by posting some hints on how to make really awesome biscuits no matter your recipe:

1. Fold the dough instead of kneading it, and, most importantly, do not overwork the dough! Five to seven folds should be enough.

2. Press hard straight down once with your biscuit cutter/glass, and don't twist the cutter. This will impede the rising.

3. Don't grease the baking sheet. It encourages lateral spread at the expense of height.

4. Try not to reroll the dough. I like to cut square biscuits, which doesn't yield picturesque round biscuits but avoids rerolling altogether.

5. Don't overflour your work surface (or the top of the dough). Sprinkle just enough to keep the dough from sticking.


I won the Met's $25 ticket lottery (for the second time!), which means that we're going to see Rigoletto tonight, which means that upon our return we'll have a midnight dinner consisting of picnic leftovers. I'm going to miss the post-exam life next year...