Athens Stories, Part 2

My grandmother was an extraordinary cook. Moreover, cooking was an absolute joy to her (I've been told I take after her a bit in both temperment and looks, but I didn't inherit her total adoration of cooking, nor her great culinary skills). She was old-school, where everything was made from scratch, and she somehow knew how to walk into a kitchen and throw a meal together out of just anything—a testament to Depression-era cooking, no doubt.

Breakfast was a big deal, and I remember waking up to gigantic spreads of food whenever my family visited. Surely she didn’t cook like this all the time, but she went all out when we were there (this was before the era of health concerns, obviously). Homemade biscuits were the staple. The light and fluffy creations were shaped by hand, and she served them with butter (of course) and a choice of syrup, honey, or jelly. Bacon was served on the side, and because one type of meat was obviously not enough, she would cook up some sausage, too. Naturally, if she was frying sausage, she was pretty much obligated to add some flour to the pan drippings and whip up some sausage gravy. If this gravy wouldn’t do, she could offer alternatives: tomato gravy or, if she'd cooked country ham, red-eye gravy (for the coffee lovers). And she couldn’t forget the grits—this was a Southern meal, after all.

All of this brings me to my favorite biscuit-related story (and everyone should have one). As my grandmother told it, she had made a fresh batch of biscuits many years back and had set the skillet on top of the stove so the biscuits could cool a bit. My cousin Kermit (yes, I know—other than the frog, who else has that name?) was back in Athens for a visit with his parents, the aunt and uncle discussed in the previous story. My grandmother hadn’t seen him that morning, but she knew he was next door at my great aunt's. Since no one was with her to partake of the hot biscuits, my grandmother went about her household chores. Kermit could help himself when he stopped by.

A little while later, she heard someone in the kitchen. From the dining room, she peeked around the corner to see Kermit, with his sandy blond hair, his boots, and his jeans, standing over the stove with his back to her, looking as if he had a knife in his hand and was buttering a biscuit for himself. He must have smelled them through the kitchen’s screen door and made a beeline for the treats. Who could blame him for diving on in? She turned to finish up her work, leaving him to enjoy her cooking.

When she was done, she went back into the kitchen to find that every single biscuit was gone. For that matter, Kermit was, too. Well! Not that my grandmother would have begrudged a biscuit to anyone, but this was puzzling, to say the least. Had the boy been starving or something?

A bit later in the day, Kermit returned, and, naturally, she just had to ask him why he ate all of the biscuits. He looked completely blank and asked, "What biscuits?" She told him she’d seen him in the kitchen eating them, but he seemed clueless and denied it. Then it began to sink in as she finally took a good look at him. Sandy blond hair? Yes. Boots? Um...no. Jeans? Nope.

?!?!

She never did discover who her guest was that morning. Obviously, this story is a testament to an era when nobody bothered to lock their doors. Can you imagine a total stranger in your house nowadays? Yikes. To a passerby in need of a free meal, I guess this whole scenario was the perfect invitation to just come on in, and I'm thankful he was only after the biscuits. What I really love is how he took the time to seek out the butter and also, apparently, the jelly while he was there. Hey, if you're going to do something, might as well do it right, huh?