My most precious memory growing up was in the kitchen. I remember watching my dad with his flour coated hands early in the morning wrestle biscuit dough. I look back amazed at how he would work so hard and still be ready to fill my belly with love.
As a parent I often revert to a good old box of cereal on tired mornings but I rarely had that memory of my dad. I don't even know if we owned cereal to be honest. So being a parent myself, really puts this language of love in perspective for me.
In all the chaos of my life, in all the heartbreak, confusion and loss this language always spoke the loudest. When I was sitting around the messy flour coated kitchen, or at the table filling myself to the brim, everything else in life faded.
Love became tangible in that kitchen and those are the memories that sing the loudest in my head now. And for that I will forever be grateful.
Now, with my own kids, life looks quite a bit different. But the one thing I want to pass on to my kids is that cloud of memory that was placed in my as a child.
I want them to look back and smell the dough bake in the oven.
I want them to hear the phantom sizzle of sausage cooking on the stove.
I want them to see the labor of love pressed into every biscuit.
As I stand here and reenact the dance of love my dad rehearsed for me time and time again, I can hear him in the back of my memory.
I grin from ear to ear as I pull out the cinnamon and sugar to make the famous "left-over dough" cinnamon bun. This was, without a doubt, my most anticipated moment.
I giggle when I take out the fork to continuously stir and wreck the bottom of my pan. I remember the stirring was endless. As a kid I would sit and wonder why you would ever have to stir gravy for that long. But now I see that every second counts in the perfect gravy consistency.
There was never a recipe.
I remember when I got married I asked my dad for the recipe and he simply told me that it was all about the feel. That his Granny made her perfect biscuits and gravy just be knowing the look and touch of the dough.
I find this so beautiful and intimate.
This type of family dynamic seems to be lost.
So while there is no real "family" recipe to share, I have one of my own I will share that I plan to pass down. The gravy however, will not have a recipe. I have no measurements for this. Like my dad and his granny, I now know how to make our family gravy by sight and touch. And I want to keep this. I plan to teach this to my kids and pray they do the same with theirs.
So enjoy these biscuits. Grab your kids, grandkids, cousins, or friends, and laugh and smile around a messy flour coated kitchen. Make memories that last. Love someone by filling their stomach.
