Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 27, 1990 TAG: 9007280347
SECTION: SMITH MOUNTAIN TIMES PAGE: SMT-2 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: SHARON HODGE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Where are my biscuits?" asks a friendly customer, who has come in to pick up a dozen of Lena's fresh-baked buttermilk beauties.
From behind the deli counter, Lena smiles and waves in her spotless white apron.
Her biscuits - and other baked goods - have created something of a cult following in Moneta.
"I cooked for my family for 45 years and never once thought about getting paid for it," said Lena, a 65-year-old woman who raised five children.
Kim Robinson, a former Realtor, persuaded Lena to do the cooking for the convenience store/deli/gasoline station that Robinson opened this summer at Hales Ford Bridge.
Robinson said she wanted the store to have something more than the standard luncheon menu.
Then she heard about Lena Scyphers.
Five years ago, Scyphers began baking for the now-defunct Village Shops. To her surprise, she developed a faithful corps of regulars who came for her biscuits and pies.
"She makes the best pies I ever had," said Fells Lam of Moneta.
"She uses just the right amount of sugar and other ingredients. I just can't describe how good it tastes," Lam said. "I used to eat her biscuits at the Village Shops, and when I heard she was here, I came looking for her."
Lam cans his own fruit and brings it to Water Works, where Scyphers bakes pies to his order. "I just got him spoiled, I guess," she said.
Scyphers' biscuits - known as "Lena's Biscuits" - are so popular that Robinson has featured them in the store's advertising.
"Sometimes we get orders a week in advance," Robinson said. "When I made plans to open the store, I didn't even think about bakery items. Now we have something special."
Scyphers can't understand what all the fuss is about.
"I just use flour, buttermilk and shortening," she said. "How many ways are there to make biscuits?"
Her simple recipe once offended a customer who inquired about the secret of her biscuits. "I think she thought I was holding something back."
The key to biscuit making, she said, is the feel of the dough. "There's sticky wet dough and a dry sticky dough. The dry - that's the good dough."
It takes a lot of practice to learn the feel of the dough and what combination of flour, milk and shortening make just the right consistency, she said.
Robinson said food vendors who service the lake's convenience stores make food preparation almost fool proof. "But no matter how good the instructions are for using their mixes, nothing tastes as good as someone's own recipe," she said.
The breakfast item may be her specialty, but Scyphers said she has other treats to tempt customers - like a butter cream cake topped with chocolate fudge.
Not one to toot her own horn, Scyphers won't say her baking is extraordinary - or even good. Instead she holds out a piece of rich dark fudge and says: "The proof is in the pudding."
by CNB