The Biscuit Also Rises

We had some gravy left from the roast chicken, and the crepinettes were calling from the freezer. It was a cold, grouchy sort of day, sorely lacking in inspiration, and some serious comfort food seemed like an appropriate antidote. Biscuits popped into my mind, though I'm pretty sure I've never made them before; originally the thought was to make these for brunch the next morning, but then I quickly succumbed to the trashy pleasures of breakfast for dinner.

I took two of the approximately Italian-seasoned sausages and got them going in a skillet while I banged out a simple biscuit dough. Since we had no buttermilk, I combined yogurt and soymilk to pretty good effect, and my mad butter-cutting skillz ensured good loft and moisture. The crepinettes rendered off a fair amount of fat, and since there was flour on the counter I took them out and made still more gravy with their fat using some leftover pork stock from Milo's lunch of broth and rice (he has a cold.) To this sausage gravy I then added the chicken gravy and whisked them into an unholy goodness. And I steamed some kale, not having time to do the slow-cooked thing.

To drink, a bottle of 2003 Domaine Cheze Saint Joseph cuvée Ro-Rée, which to my taste is as fine a $20 bottle as is available today. It's such a classic Northern Rhône syrah, where the fruit never comes out in front of the structure, and that structure is so tangy, leathery, and seductively earthy that one forgets that it's grape juice at all- it's more like impossible spiceberries mixed with centaur sweat. I would rather drink this than a $100 California syrah any day of the week, and with the exception of say a 1998 Grange, anything at all from Australia.