Last night I got the inking done in time, if not in record time. I seem to be slowing down of late — on a good run an “average” row of Schlock Mercenary takes 20 minutes to ink, assuming no distractions, interruptions, or “really tricky bits.” Lately my average seems to be closer to 30 minutes, and it’s NOT because I’m adding more to the artwork or being more careful.
Anyway, today is for coloring, packing, scripting, and final prep for the trip. I thought I’d get it off to a good start, so I made breakfast — a real, down-home, southern-style breakfast like Momma used to WISH she could make but she was a southern transplant and just never caught on and besides she couldn’t cook.
(that run-on sentence felt good).
So, the menu: Biscuits and gravy, grits, basted eggs, thick-sliced bacon, and a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice Diet Vanilla Pepsi. (No OJ in the house. Fie!)
I’ve long wondered what the secret was to the biscuit gravy they use at the Novell cafeteria. I THOUGHT it was the sausage, or maybe they were using bacon grease in it. On a hunch, though, I tried some new seasonings this time. Rather than just the usual fresh-ground pepper, I added some McCormick Poultry Seasoning, which is a blend of Thyme, Sage, and probably a few other aromatic spices. Naturally I sniffed the bottle first, and a voice in my head (probably in my sinus, just upstream from that bottle o’ spices) said “that’s the stuff. Dump lots in.”
The gravy tasted all wrong, right up until the point that it had cooled and been poured over a (Pillsbury “Grands”) biscuit, at which point I realized a had NOT ruined breakfast, I’d discovered the essential spice-blend for good biscuit gravy. W007!!11
(the juxtaposition of “biscuit gravy” and 1337 amuses me)
I wanted to take a picture of my breakfast to share with you, but Sandra has the camera in Pocatello. The thick, meaty, perfectly-seasoned gravy was spread over the two halves of a single biscuit. Laid half-on/half-off that delicious slop was a pair of basted eggs (it’s like a cross between “over easy” and “poached”), yolks unbroken and pink on top. Alongside this stack of carbs-and-cholesterol were three strips of thick, crispy bacon (the fourth got eaten while I waited for biscuits to cook). In a bowl adjacent to this heaping platter of heart-stopping goodness was a hearty portion of grits, topped with a pat of butter (not margarine… BUTTER, thankyouverymuch) slowly melting into a golden puddle of joy. For down-washings, there was a tumbler full of Diet Vanilla Pepsi just the way I like it — poured an hour ago, allowed to stand, no ice.
A few days ago Scrubbo said “Bad Cartoonist, no biscuit.” I didn’t end up having biscuits the next day, but this morning I made up for that in spades. Spades I tell you.
–Howard