“Good Gravy……”

“There is no sight on earth more appealing than the sight of a woman making dinner for someone she loves”.   ~Thomas Wolfe

I’m not sure when it happened,  but one day I was able to make gravy.

Now for most country cooks, they know what I’m talking about, but for some of you, maybe you have never had to endure the failures of gravy making.  It’s funny how my gravy lesson began the same time as I said “I do“. For me, as a daughter of a Kentucky mother, and the granddaughter of two great country cooks, gravy was a rite of passage. You get married, you set up housekeeping, you master iron skillet gravy making. Its just part of the package. 

If you fail at gravy, you will probably fail at life.

Or that is how serious I took it. To me, it was more than gravy. It was a sign that I was ready to stand on my own, I no longer needed my mother to tell me when to stir, not to stir, how much flour to add or how thick I needed to make it. I had watched her for years and assumed that her lumpless, satin creation was just beyond my fingertips and as soon as I had my own place- like my new freedom, Gravy would “come to me”.

I was wrong.

I can remember the first time, I made sausage gravy as a newlywed. I woke up just a few minutes before Dave, set the table and started a pot of coffee… I had just fried up a pound of sausage, reserved just a little of the grease and sausage crumbles in the pan and then started by adding a little flour and milk. This was going to be a breakfast fit for a king. Dave would be so happy that he married me…true love AND gravy? Who could ask for anything more?

I had no idea glue was so easy to make.  

And I didn’t take kindly to my failure… Dave walked into our small galley kitchen, still wiping the sleep from his eyes…cloaked in wedded bliss, inhaled the smells of the cookery and looked pleased with the odiferous, mouth watering smells of sausage and biscuits and then placed his hand gently on my shoulder and attempted a kiss on the cheek…

“WHATS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!! CAN’T YOU SEE I’M MAKIN’ GRAVY?!!” I snapped at him and continued to stir my skillet with furied frustration.

I was one flustered twenty-something, sweaty in the brow over a skillet of pepper dotted whiteness and I was finding out quickly that I had no idea how to make gravy. Of course this labeled me a moron in my own eyes and I shooed Dave from the kitchen so that he could not see me in full failure mode.

The Honeymoon was over.

I had shown my “gravy side” and it was not pretty. Who knew all these emotions would spill forth just from my inadequate gravy making skills? For me, I had failed, I had corrupted the vision of  marriage with this lumpy, thick, sticky, wallpaper paste fiasco. Within seconds a thick, fleshy top took over my pan of gravy and I can remember that moment like it was yesterday. Me, the pan, and the angry trip two feet over to dump it into the sink… Hatefully turning the hot water on, flushing my cauldron of goo down into the sink with tears welling in my eyes.

Dave returned and asked why I threw away  my gravy. I told him how awful it was and he said next time to save it and together we would work out the lumps. Thats how it starts out, lumpy and then you just stir it until it smooths out, then add the milk and stir some more. He brushed the hair off my brow and told me he thought it looked great and he couldn’t wait to try it the next time.

There in that kitchen, I knew I had married up.

He had calmed the Gravy Monster inside me. With simple words.

It took me a few more trips around the skillet before I mastered the art of gravy making but now I could probably make gravy out of anything that takes up residence in a pan.

I think that the reason I put so much emphasis on gravy making and marriage is because gravy is a lot like a marriage. Sometimes it gets a few lumps but the more time you take and the more stirring it eventually comes around.

I’ve been making gravy for nearly twenty two years and I couldn’t be happier.