BISCUITS

      My Mom tried so hard to make yeast rolls and bread and just couldn't get them right to suit herself. She made wonderful biscuits, cornbread, and cakes from scratch, though.  I have a story I tell young people that are getting ready to go out on there own.  I loved my Mom's biscuits but never tried to make them until after she had been incapacitated by a stroke.  I had tried different recipes, etc., trying to duplicate but the results weren't to my satisfaction.  When she had her last heart attack and was in Fair Oaks Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia my husband found an old Savour Magazine in a waiting room and was attracted to the cover which featured pheasants and pomegranates and he brought it back to California with us.  The area we live in in the North Sacramento Valley is famous for pheasant hunting and we grow a lot of pomegranates here.  My sisters-in-law Barbara and Suzanne make the best  pomegranate jelly in the world and as my Dad would say "It tastes so good it makes you want to swallow your tongue".  Within a month of her hospitalization my Mom passed away.  One day I was thumbing through the Savour magazine, it was an old Thanksgiving issue,  and saw a recipe for biscuits which I tried and for the first time I was successful.  The texture was right and they tasted like Mom's.  I always felt Mom's spirit directed my husband to pick up that magazine for me to find her recipe for biscuits.  Now the reason I discuss this with young people is to tell them if there's a dish their families make learn to cook it yourself  because you'll miss it when Mom or Dad aren't there to make it for you anymore.  Even a recipe as simple and plain as biscuits.