Along with grief comes a lot of triggers to bad, sad, traumatic and scary memories that can be really hard to deal with. I had PTSD after Mr. Virgo died and I really wanted to just turn off my brain and never remember anything again…ever. Thank goodness, that’s not how it works. I had “grief brain” for a couple of years, but as the bad memories faded to the background, I was really pleased the good memories could billow up in their place.

I was scrolling through the suggested videos on Facebook the other night. I watch a lot of cooking videos. And, those cute little “talking” dachshunds…Moonpie Starbox and her little sister, Buttercup. I get the biggest kick out of “Cooking with Brenda Gantt.” She is so country…she could be my kin. She has great cooking videos. Nothing fancy, she just shows you how it’s done. Well, how SHE does it. I love her!

I came across this video about making biscuits in a dough bowl and something way, way deep back in the recesses of my mind flickered. I had to think about it and cogitate a bit till I placed where I’d seen this before. My grandma’s sister-in-law was a small, wiry woman that lived in a little house a few miles from the farm. Aunt Ann was great! She always had a feedsack apron on over her house dress. She might have anything from a little chick to a baby squirrel or fresh farm eggs in her pockets any given time. She had those thick lenses in her glasses that magnified the ornery sparkle in her eye and a laugh like rainwater…smooth and clear and easy.

We used to go over to visit Aunt Ann when I’d stay with Grandma some during the summer. She always had ducks and geese and chickens and more fresh eggs than she knew what to do with. There were kittens and puppies and who knows what all running around her yard. We would sit on the porch and talk for a spell and eventually it was time to go home. I remember always feeling sad that it was time to leave. I’m so glad Daughter #1 has memories of her Great Aunt Ann, too.

I will not swear on a stack of Bibles that it was Aunt Ann that made her biscuits like this, but that’s who I immediately thought of when I saw this video. I also remember my Aunt Peeps telling me about Grandma Teters’ (her first husband’s grandmother) making her biscuits in a dough bowl. They had a house along the “turnpike” where teamsters stopped overnight to rest. It was the predecessor to the B&B. When I went to visit my Aunt Peeps one summer and she sent me home with Grandma Teters’ crocks. 

That big blue crock on the left was Grandma Teters’ dough bowl that she made biscuits in like Brenda Gantt in her video. The next blue crock is one I purchased along the way. The third blue crock was used for whatever was needed…serving at the table, carrying scraps to the pigs and chickens, or maybe mixing up a bowl of cucumbers and onions with a little vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and pepper…a sort of “refrigerator pickle” commonly served in the summer. Maybe with a little cut up tomatoes in it. Refreshing!

The little yellow crock with the light blue and pink stripes around the top was Grandpa Teter’s “sody crock.” He suffered from a “sour stomach”, so whenever he walked past his bowl of baking soda, he’d scoop up a finger full and eat it, washing it down with some spring water. That was the early equivalent of Alka Seltzer or Tums. The two small crocks have cracks in them so I don’t use them. I keep them inside another bowl so they don’t get bumped and broken. 

When I downsized, there were a few things that I absolutely refused to part with, and these crocks were among my most treasured possessions. And now, I have this vague memory and the knowledge of just exactly how Grandma Teters made her biscuits in that big, blue crock.

You can watch Brenda Gantt making Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits the old fashioned way HERE.

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“Everything that happens has happened before; nothing is new, nothing under the sun.”

Ecclesiastes 1:9 CEV