<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Biscuits Beyond Compare</div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><br class=""></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> When I first started cooking at Tassajara, I had a problem. I couldn't get my biscuits to come out the way they were supposed to. I'd follow the recipe and try variations, but nothing worked These biscuits just didn’t measure up.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> Growing up I had "made" two kinds of biscuits. one was from Bisquik and the other from Pillsbury. For the Bisquik biscuits you added milk to the mix and then blobbed the dough in spoonfuls onto the pan—you didn't even need to roll them out. The biscuits from Pillsbury came in a kind of cardboard can. You rapped the can on a corner of the counter and it popped open. Then you twisted the can open more, put the premade biscuits on a pan and baked them. I really liked those Pillsbury biscuits. Isn't that what biscuits should taste like? Mine just weren't coming out right.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> It's wonderful and amazing the ideas we get about what biscuits should taste like, or what a life should look like. Compared to what? Canned biscuits from Pillsbury? Leave It to Beaver? People who ate my biscuits could extol their virtues, eating one after another, but to me these (perfectly good) biscuits just weren't "right. "</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> Finally one day came a shifting-into-place, an awakening: not "right" compared to what? Oh, my word, I'd been trying to make canned Pillsbury biscuits! Then came an exquisite moment of actually tasting my biscuits without comparing them to some (previously hidden) standard. They were wheaty, flakey, buttery, "sunny, earthy, real" (as Rilke's sonnet proclaims). They were incomparably alive, present, vibrant—in fact much more satisfying than any memory.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> These occasions can be so stunning, so liberating, these moments when you realize your life is just fine as it is, thank you. Only the insidious comparison to a beautifully prepared, beautifully packaged product made it seem insufficient. Trying to produce a biscuit—a life—with no dirty bowls, no messy feelings, no depression, no anger was so frustrating. Then savoring, actually tasting the present moment of expedience—how much more complex and multi-faceted. How unfathomable. A thought. . . a feeling. . . ants crawling on the ground in the sunlight.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> As zen students we spent years trying to make it look right, trying to cover the faults, conceal the messes. We knew what the Bisquik Zen Student looked like: calm, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, deep, profound. Our motto, as one of my friends said, was, "Looking good. " We’ve all done It: trying to look good as a husband, wife or parent. Trying to attain perfection. Trying to make Pillsbury biscuits.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> Well, to heck with it I say, wake up and smell the coffee. How about some good old home cooking, the biscuits of today. Handle each ingredient with sincerity arid whole-heartedness. The results will take care of themselves. Savor them. </p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Ed Brown</div></div></body></html>