All About Biscuits

Hi and welcome to my first personal blog.  I've done blogs for newspapers before, but this one is all blog all the time. I plan to write  a few hundred words each weekday about topics of interest, and hope that you will find them amusing or interesting as well.

I'm coming from three years of writing a weekly newspaper column. I parted ways with them after they sacked my editor for no good reason.  It was uncalled for.  Anyhow, my daughters have suggested I do a blog for years now, and they are intelligent and attractive young women, so why not?  Here goes!

You probably noticed the name of the blog, Biscuit City.  I chose this name for a couple of reasons.  One, I like biscuits, even if they're not particularly good for you.  They make a fine comfort food, fresh from the oven, hot, with butter or whatever you like on them.  Frozen biscuits developed in the past several years made wonderful biscuit products.  I tried making biscuits from scratch a few years ago and succeeded in cooking up about a dozen charred lumps.  And now?  Take 'em out of the freezer, slap 'em on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees or so. Yum!

I know our friends the Brits call what we would term cookies, biscuits.  In terms of the name which means "twice baked," that's right. The term biscuit came in this country to be applied to unleavened bread which could be quickly cooked and served with gravy, just the thing for basic cooking implements.  Still, they take some skill to make, as I said earlier.

The rest of the blog's name came from a little-known Gordon Lightfoot song, "Biscuit City," which goes in part, "I'd rather be in Biscuit City with my banjo in my hands/ Than take a big vacation to some far-off land..." The song goes on to describe Biscuit City as a utopian place where everything is just as it should be, and, although the song doesn't say so, there are a lot of hot biscuits.  With gravy.

There's a Biscuit Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee this weekend.  Maybe some of you are going to it. I hope you can, and please bring me back a biscuit.