White Lily Cream Biscuits
The Reed girls at 126 Mallette St., Chapel Hill, NC. This was the house we moved to when I was 4. Mom and Dad sold it in my late 30s.
I’ve talked a bit about my childhood home before in this blog. God, that was a great house! Did it come that way? Um, no. When Mom and Dad bought it, college students had been living in it for 30 years. We didn’t have a kitchen for the first month and ate a lot of Hardee’s. Remember Hardee’s? That was a landmark for us. “Driving from downtown on Franklin St., turn left at Hardee’s and we’re at the top of the hill.” Hardee’s was the place where Dad used to threaten to “march me down and get me a job” when I was being lazy. We used to have a cleaning lady, Mary, who would come on Thursdays. Her only stipulation for employment was that she be allowed to walk down to Hardee’s and get a “Big Twin” and then have an hour of alone time to watch her daily soap opera. We complied.
Mom and Dad worked really hard on that house, initially by staining and sealing the floors themselves and, then, as time and money permitted, fixing it up and adding things like a new master suite, an expanded dining room and kitchen, and a large screened porch. In the end it was cool in a way that could have never been purchased because it developed organically.
The upstairs bedrooms had enormous closets with slanted ceilings which were located in the eaves of the house. My friends were always shocked to discover that my closet had a window in it. This window is actually integral to several stories from my youth. The first, and most impactful, involves me falling out of said window! I was around four or so and my sister and I decided to surprise my parents by getting ready for church all by ourselves. We woke up and got dressed. I’m not sure what prompted me, I guess I was feeling a little Disney princess, but I sat in the window and sang. I was rocking back and forth and just flipped right on out! The screen hadn’t been latched. We’re not sure how long I was down there, but eventually Elisabeth figured out that I wasn’t in the closet anymore and found me. There are several miraculous things about this story, the first being that I lived to tell about it. I landed in the mud, right next to a pile of bricks. I landed on my bottom, which allows me to say that I was “literally saved by my ass”. Apparently Mom came running down in her nightgown, scooped me up despite the urge to stabilize me, and rushed me to the car, closing someone’s leg or arm in the door in the process. (Who was it? My sister? I was busy with some other stuff so I don’t remember the specifics.) At the hospital I was examined from head to toe and they were unable to find anything wrong with me. All I can figure is that I used up one of my nine lives.
Sometime in grade school, Mom and Dad decided that we needed an evacuation plan in case there was a house fire. They bought us these chain ladders that we could hang from our closet windows to escape. We would have periodic drills, making sure we knew how to work them. I enjoyed the process so much that I often just did it for fun, opening the window, untangling the ladder, and climbing down trying not to break the living room storm windows that the ladder clanged against. I would do this whenever I got the whim, often, most inconsiderately, when Mom was giving piano lessons in the room below.
Later, when I was in more of a juvenile delinquent phase, I would smoke cigarettes out of this very same closet window. My hanging clothes must have smelled horrible, can you imagine? I liked to gab on the phone (remember pulling your landline cord as long as it could go?), chat with friends, and smoke. Boy, was I sophisticated! Once I was talking with a boy I was interested in, Mark. He was playing the guitar riff for Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” to me on repeat over the line. I was so wrapped up in this that I didn’t hear my mom banging on my bedroom door. She eventually let herself in, found no one in my room and deduced that I must be in the closet. (To be fair, there was probably smoke pouring out.) She opened that door, found me puffing away and said, “Now why would you do THAT?!”. After a quick “I gotta go” to Mark, I hung up the phone to face the music. You know what happened? Nothing. Mom said, “Smoking is stupid, don’t do it” and we never discussed it again.
In my teen years I used to do a lot of babysitting. I worked for this single mom when she would go out on dates. At the end of the night, she would ask the guy to drive me home, which I now think is creepy as hell, but at the time I had no point of reference. One of the boyfriends asked for my address and when I told him he was like “no way!”. Apparently he had lived in our house when he was a student at UNC. I drilled down asking him for more details, which room, etc. Guess where he had lived? My freaking closet! It’s a small, small world.
Sorry - this post ended up being more about me than my mom! I’ll get back to the topic at hand next time. In keeping with Mallette St. memories and Hardee’s (where my high school carpool used to stop to get biscuits in the morning), I’m going to share one of Mom’s MANY biscuit recipes. I chose this one because it’s the one I use due to its simplicity and excellent results.
WHITE LILY CREAM BISCUITS
[Note from Mom: The name says it all. I trust you can get White Lily or Martha White self-rising flour down there]
Makes 24 (1-inch) biscuits – I like the size a lot, and haven’t tried them bigger. It would be worth buying a cutter the right size.
2 ½ cups White lily self-rising flour
1 ½ cups heavy cream [the more butterfat the better]
3 tablespoons butter, melted
Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Place the flour in a mixing bowl. Add the heavy cream and mix with a spoon until it starts to come together and forms a wet sticky dough. [The amount of liquid is very dependent on the humidity – I had to use much more than the recipe called for – but add it a little at a time]. Place on a lightly floured surface, lightly flour the top of the dough, and pat or roll it out 1/2 –inch thick. Cut the biscuits with a 1-inch cutter [cut straight down – don’t twist]. Place on an ungreased baking sheet, and bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven, brush with melted butter, and serve immediately.
Sarah’s note: I’m too lazy to roll out and cut so I make “drop” biscuits. I actually prefer the crisply little nooks in the irregular surface!
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