Jittery

For some reason, I've been jittery lately. Can't imagine why.

• Upcoming major dental surgery, described as 'sophisticated surgery'
• Realization that a whole second bout will be needed afterward
• Leaving my current job, abruptly.
• Looking for a new job; having an interview with a new company, having to sell myself to them (which I hate); new people, new responsibilities, and the high likelihood of at least two weeks a month away from home
• Selling the old car: can we trust the buyer to have given us a real certified check? Or not defraud us somehow?
  
• Generally feeling like everything I can count on and expect is shifting... and that somehow, its my fault. Course, some of it is.
  

Whats to be jittery about?

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Update a little later: All the areas that I'm jittery about, I'm doing reasonable, adult things to handle. It just that rational reactions don't seem to cancel out emotional reactions. I think, in a way, that this is why I like to bake: I control the environment, from start to finish. Nothing outside affects it. If it works, I did it; if it doesn't, I can see why, and I can fix it -- if not that time, then the next. That's worth something, I think.

Made this this morning, had them with fresh strawberries and strawberry jam. (Some day I really have to get the strawberry jam recipe our neighbor used to welcome us to the neighborhood ....twenty five years ago.)

Momentously good buttermilk biscuits

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (more for shaping dough)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons (1 stick) very cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup very cold buttermilk
Yields about 18 2-inch biscuits

Heat oven to 500 degrees F. and position a rack in the center. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Put dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and whisk to distribute them evenly.

1. Cut up butter and toss with flour

With a sharp knife, cut the cold butter lengthwise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Stack three or four slices and cut them into three even strips. Then cut the strips in half several times to make many butter bits. Toss butter bits into the flour mixture. Continue cutting all the butter in the same manner and adding it to the flour. Then use your fingers to separate the butter bits, coat each one with flour, and distribute them all throughout the mixture. Don't rub the butter too hard, or it will melt.

2. Give it a little stir

When all the butter is evenly distributed, add the cold buttermilk and stir until the flour is absorbed by the buttermilk and the dough forms a coarse lump, about 1 minute.

3. Pat and fold dough

Dust a work surface with flour and dump the dough onto it. Dust the top of the dough and your hands with flour, and press the dough into a 3/4-inch-thick rectangle. Sprinkle a bit of extra flour on the top of the dough. Fold the dough over on itself in three sections, as if folding a letter.

With a metal spatula, lift the dough off the counter and dust under it with flour to prevent sticking. Dust the top with flour and press the dough out again into a 3/4-inch-thick rectangle and repeat the trifold. Repeat this procedure once more .

4. Cut biscuits and bake

After the third trifold, dust flour under and on top of the dough, if needed, and roll or press the dough into a 1/2-inch-thick oval. Dip a biscuit cutter or a glass into flour and start cutting biscuits, dipping the cutter in flour between each biscuit. Transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet, spacing them about 1/2 inch apart. Gather any scraps of dough, roll 'em out again, and keep pressing biscuits until dough is gone.

Put the baking sheet in the oven and reduce the heat to 450 degrees F. Bake for 8 minutes; rotate the pan 180 degrees and bake for 4 to 6 more minutes until biscuit tops and bottoms are golden brown. Remove pan from oven, and set it on a cooling rack. Cool biscuits for at least 3 minutes and serve hot or warm.

Source: Adapted from the April/May issue of Fine Cooking magazine.