There are more recipes for biscuits and gravy in the world than there are boob jobs in Beverly Hills. Many of them are passable, at best. Frustrated by the lack of a truly exceptional guide that takes into account all three aspects of the dish- making the sausage, coaxing it into rich, spreadable gravy, and, perhaps most important, crafting a biscuit that is at once tender but also sturdy enough to carry the sauce- I spent months developing the results you see here.

Quality of ingredients matters. When you reach the recipe section of this post, you’ll see that I am very specific in naming brands. This is not arbitrary; I tested and retested combinations of ingredients until I achieved an exact balance of flavor and texture. Change something and you’ll have a different result. As the saying goes, you can cheat, but you’ll only be cheating yourself.

The same axiom applies to technique. Good biscuits and gravy cannot be whipped up as quickly as the frothy libido of a teenager. Don’t skip steps!  That being said, the morning-of process doesn’t take long if you’ve planned ahead. Finally, precision is key. Invest thy coffee coinage for a week in a good kitchen scale. The importance of weight measurements cannot be stressed enough, although I’ve given volume as well, for the truly obstinate among you. Read more

Fresh off the heels of bacon-wrapped bacon and chili con carne soused in Velveeta for the superbowl comes the weeklong gag-me season of red velvet everything. A quick scan of the interwebs reveals red velvet cake pops, red velvet cheesecake, red velvet panna cotta, and even red velvet cosmopolitans- in the case of that last one, NO, two wrongs don’t make a right so don’t even think about it. Put down the cocktail shaker and man up, you namby pamby sissy.

So yeah, Valentine’s Day is coming and we all have our crosses to bear with Cupid. Some of us dismiss it out of hand as a Hallmark holiday while others desire expect a flatbed of roses delivered to the office at an opportune time so as to bask in the envious glares of perpetually-single cat lady colleagues. Regardless where you fall on the scale of ostentatious displays of pink-frosted love, you’ve gotta eat. So why not eat a bloodbath of visceral carnage to get closer to that thumping, pumping organ inside your chest cavity that’s supposed to be responsible for all the paramourious emotion- the heart.

The heart is the body’s main transfer station for blood. Sometimes it sends it up top and you feel really brainy like you could sort out a Rubik’s cube using only your pinkie toes. Other times it sends the blood down low and the only solution is to tend your secret garden with the deep, penetrating strokes of a big hoe. Either way, there’s blood involved, so why not mirror that on the plate for Valentine’s Day? In the words of my straight-shooting friend John from the blog Foodwishes, “The way to a man’s heart is through well-seasoned meat… and vice versa.”

With that in mind, I chose all things bloody and (naturally) red to express the profound color of my passion on Valentine’s Day. Naturally there’s meat. In this case it’s venison tenderloin. Beef tenderloin is the bees knees and can be substituted, sure, but the hot, wet feeling of a purple-red deer loin throbbing in your hands is unlike anything else. Or maybe it’s kind of like SOME other sensation, but I can’t quite nail it… Read more

There I was, merrily taking a little break from food blogging to realign my priorities and practice my big comeback into the world of social media (hint- it involves jumping through flaming hula hoops, jazz hands, and a honey badger) when something happened that compelled me to write. But first, it compelled me to pour myself a big, stiff cocktail, you know, because that’s just the way I like them. Big and stiff. Cocktails, I mean. This one’s called the Green Gargoyle, in keeping with all the trendy green drinks of today like Green Machine, only it has the power of tequila and jalapeno rather than spirulina and kale excrement. So settle in, relax, and let me tell you a little story. Afterward you’ll want a Green Gargoyle.

During my last year of college I decided to move in with my boyfriend. It made sense, after all, since we spent practically every night together anyway. He was brooding, artistic and conflicted which totally turned me on and totally turned my friends and family off. Nobody thought it was a good idea, but I thrive on changing no’s into yeses, so I did it anyway. In the first few months, little things started happening. He locked me and my two newborn kittens out of the house one night because my best friend had come to visit and he was jealous of the time I spent with her. He followed me, popping up in strange places when he said he would be out of town. My relationships with friends became strained because they could see something I refused to and I wouldn’t listen when they told me to get out. Read more