Maggie's Farm

First you find a dyed- in- the- wool Southerner, who has a cast iron skillet his mother gave him. Then you buy some Jimmy Dean sausage and some buttermilk biscuits, either in a frozen roll or in a bag, like Pillsbury's. [Or you could make them yourself.] Then you slice up the sausage and brown it in the skillet. This is kind of a roux thing, you see. You scoop out the sausage nibbles, drain and reserve. Then you start adding flour and stirring into the pork fat, adding a generous slurp of half and half every so often, along with salt and pepper to taste. When your formerly white sauce is a nice thick golden tan, add back the sausage nibbles. Meanwhile, you have baked off the biscuits, which you slice open and douse with the gorgeous gravy.

It all sounds so simple, doesn't it? It's not, because somehow everything marries and becomes greater than itself. We've traveled over Texas and Louisiana and watched great long lines of folks snake over big parking lots, waiting to get into Jimmy Dean's restaurants or other local places, just to have a generous plate of this deceptively simple dish.

I discovered shrimp when I was 35 years old and lived in Milwaukee. I fell in love that night, and stuffed my face in a disgraceful manner. The same thing happened when I discovered Southern biscuits and sausage gravy.

Marianne

Tomorrow is cheese blintz day at our house. Native Southerners are not too familiar with blintzes in all of their glory, so I introduced my husband to blintzes as a return favor for his showing me how wonderful Southern biscuits and sausage gravy could be. Turn about is fair play. For awhile there we became quite chubby. But happy. Very happy.

Marianne