Yep.  I do.  I can watch Food Porn for hours.  Food Network.  Cooking Channel.  Even Travel Channel gets in on it with Anthony Bourdain (I adore him!!), Adam Richmond and Andrew Zimmern (how come all three of their first names begin with an ‘A’?).  I’m fascinated by the vast amount of cooking shows and the recipes they come up with.  Some I just don’t watch at all.  Some that I watched at one time, I no longer find appealing (sorry, Emeril!).  I’ve watched Food Porn for so long that the satellite receiver will pop up a message asking if I’m still watching because the channel hasn’t changed in hours.  The best part of this (well, besides all of the new recipes), is that I can watch Food Porn without getting hungry.  It’s like watching a documentary…

I have been cooking since I was young, making my first chocolate souffle at the age of twelve.  I’d entered baked goods into the county fair, like my Marble Chiffon Cake and double-crust apple pie.  I’ve made special cakes for relatives (I’ve made my sister a Rabbit Cake and a Kitty Cake) and friends birthdays (Strawberry cake with strawberries and vanilla cream filling, frosted in strawberry vanilla buttercream).  There is a Chocolate Almond Torte that I have made on occasion that is SO thick and rich that a mere sliver is enough for the average human being; DH, having a sweet tooth the size of the state of Texas, has consumed a quarter of the torte in one sitting.

There are some recipes that I try and toss, and some that I try and lose, longing to find them again.  Alton Brown’s show, Good Eats, was a favorite of mine, because he got into the science of why and how things work (like baking powder).  Then in 2007, he had a show called “Feasting on Asphalt” where he and a crew rode motorcycles from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast.  The first episode gave a recipe that I wrote down at the time the show aired, but lost shortly after making it and have been longing to find it again since then.

One of the stops they made was at The Biscuit Place in Washington, Georgia, and the recipe for their biscuits was “sort of” revealed.  I say “sort of” because you have to play with the amount of flour a little bit.  I’ll pass it along here because it is hands down THE best recipe for biscuits I’ve come across.

The Biscuit Place Biscuits

5# of Self-Rising Flour
20 oz. shortening.
1/2 gal of buttermilk.

Mix the shortening into the flour by hand, slowly adding the buttermilk.  Once mixed together, pull dough out onto a floured (use more self-rising flour) board and knead gently for a few minutes until dough is not sticking to the board.  Pat or roll out to about 1″ thickness, cut into desired sizes and bake in a 375 degree oven until done.  Brush with melted butter when they are taken out of the oven.

Then eat…  And eat… and eat another.

Today I tracked down the first episode, wrote down the recipe again, made a half-recipe (turns out about 24 HUGE biscuits) and also made Potato Chip Crisp cookies and Chocolate Crinkle cookies.  Dinner was leftover Jamaican Jerked Chicken turned into spicy chicken gravy served over biscuits.  Yeah – it was that good.