Like a Pig

I never even heard of biscuits and gravy until I moved to West Virginia. It seems like the first time I ever ate biscuits and gravy was at McDonald's, which had not even been built yet in the little town when I arrived there in 1986, I think it was. That McDonald's changed my life, albeit in a small way.

C. Price introduced me to the best method of eating gravy and biscuits. Whereas before I would halve the biscuits and then cut them up with a fork bite by bite, C. Price showed me that I needed to first rip the biscuit into small pieces with my little old fingers before dousing with gravy.

Then when I was in high school, my buddy Peanut moved down the road from me. I don't know what kind of cook Peanut was otherwise, but he could cook some biscuits and gravy. Dangit. Of course, he made his gravy with venison, and it was thick and flavorful. He also baked his own huge biscuits. We washed down the meal with Mountain Dew and played Double Dribble on the Nintendo. Good times, thanks to Peanut.

A long time passed, then, before I ate biscuits and gravy again. These last few years, however, I had a hankering for the dish, and I could not find any decent biscuits and gravy anywhere I went. The biscuits would usually be okay, but the gravy;like paste, bland and vulgar, so I decided to try cooking my own.

Now, biscuit-making is another task that does not always turn out the way you want it to. On my first attempts to make biscuits, they usually turned out like hockey pucks. As a matter of fact, when I tried to get the wife to eat them, that's what she called them—hockey pucks. Granted, the biscuits were dense and heavy--and chewy--and not very good, but I was trying to make biscuits minus the requisite amounts of fat, and that does not a good biscuit make. The more fat you use, the fluffier the biscuits, I suppose. Maybe I need to use more baking powder, or perhaps yeast. The biscuits I baked today were flaky and heavy, not light and fluffy, and that's okay to me as long as they taste good, which is the most important thing, I think.

Earlier this morning I had the good fortune of visiting the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market. I needed red wiggler worms for my compost bin, and that is the place to get them. You can also buy a variety of fresh, local produce (I saw bags and bags of greens, but didn't buy any), freshly baked bread (I did purchase a loaf), local clean meats, eggs, cheeses, and pastries. This is a good place to shop for food, and when I saw local fresh sausage for sale, I bought some with thoughts of sausage gravy entertaining me.

I browned that sausage and then added a bit of flour. After the flour cooked a bit, in went the light cream and about half a cup of chicken stock, as well as Salt and Pepper. I let this cook on medium until it boiled and thickened. Then it was ready. Tearing apart the biscuits, I spooned that gravy on top and I was almost ready to eat. A little more freshly ground Pepper and a couple red-pepper flakes later, and I was munching and lunching. I am sure that I consumed at least half of my daily calories on the meal, but it was worth it. Now I think I'm gonna take me a nap.