Monthly Archives: March 2006

I’ve been out working at a new client site for a few months now. On the first day I started, I went down to the cafeteria to find some coffee and check out the breakfast offerings and was woo-hoo-thrilled to see that they were offering a biscuits and gravy special. See, a good biscuit and gravy is easily one of my top 3 breakfast foods. Cheap, filling, and even the ‘bad’ ones aren’t usually that bad. I don’t run into them very often up here in the north country – in fact now that I think about it I’m not even sure where I’d go in the Cities to get some – but when I run into one, it’s usually given the serious consideration that it deserves.
Being the first day on the job, I wasn’t about to load up a plate and haul it back upstairs to my desk. It’s just not something you do when you’re trying to make a good first impression. A breakfast of biscuits and gravy comes with baggage. It’s such an uncommon thing to eat in Minnesota, people look at you funny when you do. At some places, they even make you wear a scarlet ‘B’ on your business casual outfit.
So instead of ordering, I just made a mental note and figured I’d get my chance next time they were on special.
And then a week went by. Then two. Then a month. No biscuits. Six weeks. Still no biscuits. All the other breakfast specials repeat most every week, and never go more than two. Now two months. I get worried. Time to take matters into my own hands. I befriend the grill guy, who doubles as the breakfast cook.
“Hey, what happened to the biscuits and gravy?” I say.
“Nobody buys them, so we don’t make them anymore,” he answers.
“WHAAAA?!!” I say
After some small talk and butt kissing, he says he’ll have the cook make up a batch sometime soon. He actually seems excited that this doof guy from upstairs is so excited for his cooking. I love it when a plan comes together.
A couple more weeks pass. Then finally yesterday I go down and YEEHAW they’re back! The cook guy sees me coming and yells “THERE MY GUY!!!” and starts dishing me up a big plate full. He even offers to double me up for free. I’m in heaven.
I ask him how many he’s sold that morning.
“You’re my second order.”
“That’s a shame,” I say.
He goes on, “Tell you what, I’ll save these leftovers and I’ll set you up for the rest of the week. You can heat them up in the microwave.”
“Cool!” I say, totally caught up in the moment and not really thinking about what I’m saying.
And now I’ve got a problem. Fast forward to today. I go down to get coffee. I’ve got no interest in day old biscuits, but this cook dude and I have this thing going now. It’s like what do I do if I walk in and he’s got some special plate all made up for me? Would I have to pay? Or worse yet, what if I go up there and say “Hey cook buddy, you got those day old biscuits for me?” and the dude didn’t really save anything? It’s like a total lose-lose.
So instead of dealing with the issue, I just put my head down and power walk over to the coffee pot. Thinking back, I may have even jogged to the fridge to get half-and-half, just to emphasize how big of a hurry I was in. Over to the cash register, pay, run back upstairs, no eye contact, problem avoided.
Now the only question is how long I have to keep it up. A couple more days? I’m thinking by Friday I’m in the clear and I can start pretending it never happened, but that’s like 3 cafeteria trips from now. Good thing the salad bar is so far from the grill.
This got way too long. Kudos to you if you stayed with it.
Alton’s Southern Biscuits [foodnetwork]
Make Sausage Gravy [about]

On Friday night my parents were in town and we met them down at The Indoor Park and played with junior on the giant big toy. In a truly bizzaro St. Patrick’s Day moment, one of the parents started yelling at her kids to stay out of the green slide because it had throw-up in it. I’m thinking she wasn’t the only one yelling about green throw-up that night in the Twin Cities. Eww.
Saturday was JoePa’s birthday. He had a cake from A Baker’s Wife that was outrageously thick and whipped cream filled and chocolaty and delicious. Unfortunately I ate like 25 shrimp and a bunch of salsa and a couple of beers before the cake got cut, so I didn’t get to savor the flavor as much as I would have liked to. Also from the ‘bummer’ column: no spanking machine. In fact, crazy as it sounds, when I asked his wife if we could form a spanking machine, she had no idea what I was talking about. WTF is that about? It was still a fun time, though.
Oh, and how’s this for excitement: we rented a storage locker. If that’s not getting serious about trying to move, I don’t know what is. In related news, my giant half finished subwoofer has been relocated from our basement to its new 5×7 foot home in St Louis Park. If anyone wants to go visit it with me, shoot me a note.