Behind Every Successful Man is a Woman Who Won't Make Biscuits

It’s hard to look at a mass-produced biscuit when you’ve just enjoyed a homemade buttermilk biscuit. The first Sunday after Labor Day our parish gears up for the new program year with lunch immediately following the main service. It’s always the same – fried chicken wings and thighs (at least by the time I get to the front of the line that’s all there’s left), baked beans, potato salad, and biscuits. Those “biscuits” resemble hockey pucks.

On this particular welcome-home Sunday, Mr. Gaelic made buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast. He’s the biscuit maker in the family. Biscuits aren’t my forte. That’s because they weren’t my mother’s either.

That’s because my father made the mistake early in their marriage of telling my mother that his mother’s biscuits were better than hers. She never made biscuits for him ever again. Ever! Every weekend he’d make biscuits. Because he wanted biscuits. And his biscuits were fabulous.

Mr. Gaelic heard the story of why my father was the biscuit maker in my family. A fast study he was. He never made the same mistake my father did of telling his wife (me) that his mother made anything better than I did. Actually, that’s because I’m a much better cook than she is, which he freely admits anywhere outside of his home state. A good Southern boy always tells his mama he loves her cooking, even if he gets fed better at home.