Whitney Otawka has been cooking in Georgia for a decade.
Still, the chef at the Greyfield Inn on Cumberland Island has yet to make a biscuit. Growing up in California, she didn’t eat biscuits, turnip greens, or crackling cornbread.
Then she met Ben Wheatley, from Washington, Georgia.
Wheatley made the biscuits at Athens restaurant 5&10, where Otawka worked the line. She lent a hand. “Before he did the last fold, I’d punch the dough,” she says. “I’d leave a fist mark in it. Then I’d always claim that the biscuits turned out right just because I punched them.”
He always saved a biscuit for her, and she joked that she’d marry him if he kept it up. Ten years later, she made good on that promise. They’ve been married for three months.
She still punches the dough before he folds it, but she lets him do the rest of the work. “He makes them so well there’s no point,” she says. But she doesn’t agree with him on everything. She likes her biscuits with butter, and he prefers his with sausage and grape jelly.
If you don’t feel like waking up early to make these biscuits, prep them the night before. “They’re actually delicious the next morning,” Otawka says. Freeze cut dough rounds on a sheet tray and bake them from frozen for 20 minutes.
