junior miss and I spent labor day weekend down east, which is confusing localese for up north in maine. we were meeting my parents, who were themselves coming from yet down and easter in nova scotia. we snored our way through the gentle shower that was an embarassed former hurricane earl scurrying north and enjoyed some fun times on the beach and in the pool (junior miss) and in the local walk-in urgent care (me, after a banged up knee chose to get seriously infected my only beach weekend of the freaking summer). but I digress.
the point of this quickie post is to celebrate a breakfast I enjoyed this morning. now, I'm the kind of guy who will happily order the same thing every time I go to a restaurant. the mexican joint across the street doesn't even bother with a menu anymore - the waitress just calls back "it's the enchiladas poblanas guy again" to the kitchen when she sees me walk in. at least I think that's what she says, because that's what emerges shortly thereafter. back to my breakfast.
as I said, I tend toward the conservative in my ordering habits. in a diner, if I see sausage gravy on the menu, that's what I order. this despite decades of disappointment in greasy spoons across the nation. it is as if some miscreant food service professional started a trend: "hey, lets make some white gravy, but instead of putting actual sausage in, we just use a sausage to stir the gravy and then pepper the crap out of it so people think the lumps of flour and lard are sausage." and so the word spread across the land - the chains went first, but one by one, the old time diners followed. oh, I still eat it, because I don't mind the occasional repast of spicy lard bits, but I kept hoping for more.
I am delighted to report the maine diner does not adhere to this bastardized definition of sausage gravy. the plate arrived more grey than white, with only the height of the steaming mounds indicating the presence of the gravy's biscuit foundation. and its lumpiness was not evidence of an impatient chef with no time to do the job right. no, these were lumps of sausage. I regret that I failed to take a picture of it before devouring it. although, truth be told, it probably would not look very appetizing to someone who was NOT a sausage gravy lover.
on our way home, junior miss inquired whether the maine diner was named for the state "or the other main, the one that's important." I explained the difference in spelling, but acknowledged to her that a diner as good as the maine diner could probably justify a claim to being the main diner. it was that good.
via picplz.com