Let’s take a break from working or not working or whatever weird stuff you’re doing and play a fun game. (Yes, it’ll be fun! I can almost promise.) Remember these things (click here)? Well this is something like that — only better. Anyways, here’s how it works: I wrote a little something that includes sound clips. You read the story or don’t read the story, listen to the clips, and enjoy.

Here we go.

I play a lot great games while I eat, one of which is called “Name Every Ingredient” (awesome name, I know — I made it up all by myself) for which — you guessed it! — I go out to eat, order an arbitrary dish, and try to guess every single ingredient. The game involves a lot of me doing this:

Oh oops. Wrong clip. Uhh.. embarrassing. I mean this:

and this:

On a serious note, Name Every Ingredient is a great exercise in palate-refining — to be able to blindly discern and identify ingredients is an admirable skill for all cooks and bakers alike.

So, obviously, you and I both like tasting food. Duh. But do we listen to it? Yes? Awesome! I do too! Oh, no? Well you should. The sound of cooking and eating and digesting (yep I said it) are kind of the best. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, I’m typically overhearing some sort of something going on in the kitchen — now more so than ever because my bedroom is adjacent to our house kitchen and I’m kind of a pastry chef who spends many hours in kitchens every day. I’m also a light sleeper who’s woken up by this:

Crap, wrong clip again. OK sorry, I’m done trying to be funny. I promise. Really, though, my roommates do a lot of this:

And this:

And when I’m laying in bed, pretending to be asleep, it’s fun to guess what’s for breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or midnight snack. To be completely honest, this:

is one of the most satisfying sounds in the world. You know why? Because it means it’s time to eat. There’s nothing quite as exciting as not being sure whether this:

is eggs or bacon in the skillet until the scent creeps in through the cracks in the door and it’s so totally BACON! Ugh. Yum.

Now for a completely unrelated biscuit recipe. I probably don’t know what making biscuits sounds like and definitely don’t need to taste one to tell you what’s in one, but regardless, you should make these biscuits. They are my favorite — that is, other than the ones from Roy Rogers I only ever ate at highway rest stops. Joke. Oh, or at Tudor’s Biscuits. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you’ve never been to West Virginia and that’s fine.

Buttermilk Biscuits (makes 12)

4 cups pastry flour
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 cubes and chilled
1-3/4 cups buttermilk + more for brushing
1 oz unsalted butter, melted, for brushing

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Cut or rub the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles a course meal; do not overmix.

Make a well in the center of the mixture. Pour in 1 1/2 cups buttermilk and stir with a wooden spoon, gently working flour into buttermilk until the mixture just holds together. The dough will be shaggy.

Transfer dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a rectangle about 3/4 in thick.

Using 2-1/2-inch round cutter cut out biscuits. The dough scraps can be gently pushed together, patted out and cut one more time but be careful not to overwork the dough.

Place biscuits on parchment-lined baking sheets. Brush tops with the remaining 2 tablespoons of buttermilk.

Bake about 15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking, until the tops are golden brown. As soon as you remove the biscuits from the oven, brush with melted butter. Serve warm or transfer to a wire rack to cool.