Biscuits and Beginnings

Like many people during the pandemic, I got hooked on making biscuits and sourdough bread. I hate to admit it. But here we are.

Prior to the pandemic, I liked a good biscuit or hunk of sourdough bread just fine but I was never moved enough to make or buy either. That all changed when I found myself quarantining (safely!) in the house for months on end during 2020. Clearly, the need for carbohydrates became so intense that it could no longer be met by the chips, fries, Oreos and other treats that I brought into our home…or maybe I was just bored? Regardless, there I was searching and overpaying for the ingredients necessary to coax fabulous baked goods from my very own (idle) hands.

Photo Credit: Willy Bearden, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

So, the biscuits (I'll save the sourdough tales for another post). Y’all, I’m vegan. Maybe I should have started by admitting that up front. That could have managed your expectations in the first paragraph around what type of biscuits I might be making. But vegans like biscuits too! And really, what are biscuits but flour, salt, baking powder, fat, and liquid?

I scoured the interwebs looking for the very best vegan biscuit recipes. Not surprisingly, there are lots of recipe writers claiming just that and some even included expletives in their recipe titles to further convince me of their recipe’s greatness. (If they’re willing to use curse words, surely these biscuits MUST be great). Um. Yeah. I can confidently state that either I 1) I have poor taste in biscuits, 2) don't follow directions well, or 3) many of these internet bakers have zero taste (let’s go with this one). So, over the course of six months, there were some less than stellar attempts made. But, I persevered – I was on a mission to perfect vegan biscuits that my omnivore husband and I would find irresistible.

After a few attempts, I found a recipe – a non-vegan recipe at that – that was workable. I tweaked amounts, veganized, and refined my technique. At last, I made a biscuit that I would be proud to serve my family and guests!

Looking back, I am amazed at how long I kept trying different recipes, ingredients, and techniques for making biscuits. I’m surprised I persisted. Relatively speaking, I invested so much time, purchased and used a lot of ingredients, and failed a bunch. Because more often than not, I give up when I don’t get it right the first time.

Lesson. And not just for the kitchen.

Why do I always expect perfection when I try something new?

As a teacher and tutor, did I anticipate that my students would immediately grasp new concepts and skills the first time I shared them? Nope! I expected that they would need the time and space to make sense of what was unfamiliar. To connect new ideas to what was familiar. To explore their questions and curiosities about the new content. I would have extinguished any interest, confidence they might be developing if my expectation was perfection, right out of the gate. I extended to them – and encouraged them to extend to themselves – grace to be beginners.

What if I extended that same grace to myself – the grace to be a beginner?

The grace to do the things that beginners do – to ask questions, to make awkward attempts, to fail, to triumph, to explore, to try again? The grace to get started knowing that the path before me may be tough but worth it. There are lots of things I’ve tried but stopped because I wasn’t good at the start. There are other things that I’ve never tried because I wasn’t willing to embrace being a beginner. I see these scenarios for what they are – missed opportunities to grow, experience new things, master new skills, and live fully.

I want more for me than missed opportunities. I want more for you too! And if that means we’ll be beginners, so be it. We’ll be beginners together. (Cause everybody is a beginner at some point, right?). One of the trainers that my husband and I work out with on YouTube says "Every winner was once a beginner". I giggle every.single.time I hear him say this because I was also the kid who liked knock-knock jokes. But he's absolutely spot on.

Here’s to extending myself, ourselves more grace to be beginners…at biscuit-making or whatever task your heart is set on! What are you a beginner in? Let me know so I can celebrate you too!

Oh, and here's the recipe for those biscuits :)!