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I had this whole bit at the end where grilled andouille sort of showed up during plating, and I was going to talk about seeing my cardiologist in a couple of weeks. That at my last several visits, everything was fine—more or less—and this time, I wanted to get my money’s worth. I totally missed the bit. And honestly? It wouldn’t have helped. And that’s cool.
Lately, I’ve been focused on wrapping up this “season” of Skillet and Flask. After this episode, I’ve got three more to do, and then Season One is in the can. It’s been largely experimental—emphasis on the “mental.” I’ve got two more breakfast episodes after this one (subject to change), and then the mac and cheese episode. Next season will be totally different.
It’ll still be mostly just me, but I’m not doing the “seat of my pants” thing again. I mean, I will, because it’s fun—but only for promotion and my own entertainment. The next season is already written. I just have to vet all the recipes and hope to start shooting in October, with the first three episodes releasing in January.
But let’s get back to this year’s shitshow—specifically, yesterday.
First and foremost: flavor-wise, I’m over the moon about yesterday’s breakfast. Everything was spot on. The textures were glorious and told the story I wanted them to tell—the elusive softness of the grits, the thickness of the poached egg yolks, the acidic, piquant punch of the tomato-bacon gravy. The crunch of the face bacon. The freshness of the green onions. It totally worked. It was rich. It was filling. It was satisfying. I felt like I could plow an entire field of corn by hand… right after my nap.
I’ve been pondering my cooking style lately, and I’ve decided it’s basically Texas Gulf Coast/Southwest Louisiana meets the Shire. And that’s not such a bad thing, honestly. At least not for me. It certainly explains my love of smoked meats shoved inside some kind of pie.
Anyhoo, the pimiento cheese grits were stellar—though a little heavy on the garlic. I should’ve chopped it instead of annihilating it with my microplane. I went with pimiento cheese because I’m honestly tired of smoked gouda after the kolache fiasco.
I made a last-minute change on the tomato-bacon gravy that I’m thrilled about. I was thinking about it while making some spontaneous gumbo the other night, pondering the roux I usually use, and it hit me: I was never really satisfied with the tomato-bacon gravy. Wouldn’t gumbo juice give me exactly what I was looking for?
So I ditched the diced tomatoes I normally use and swapped in thick, chunky salsa. I went darker on the roux. I seasoned it with thyme, sage, Lea & Perrins, garlic, oregano, and smoked paprika. It worked brilliantly. I expect I’ll be seeing more of it later.
I was not happy with the egg poaching. Yes, they were officially poached—gently cooked in acidulated water just under a simmer. But I over-scienced it to prove a point, and all the art went away. Instead of looking like fluffy wads of eggy mystery, they looked like fried eggs. Oh well. The texture was right - no snotty whites, at least. Still, I’ll need to play with them a bit and figure out what the hell went wrong.
The cats and the ’coons will be eating well for a couple of days.
I think the plating could’ve been fine. The “styled” version was more than acceptable… but then I got hungry and hit it with Sriracha—straight from the bottle. Instead of neat streams of garlicky, peppery goodness, I got little blobs that sort of fell out. Inconsistent shit, this year’s Sriracha run. And it just went downhill from there.
The grits hadn’t firmed up enough, so they ran. The gravy did its job. The eggs were flat, except for the yolks. The Sriracha, of course, was a visual abomination. I casually tossed on the green onions—then realized I’d forgotten the bacon. And the damned sausage. I could’ve covered up some of the bad plating with those. Oops.
At the end of the day—and the end of the episode—I think it’s better to sincerely fuck up than to stage perfection. So it is what it is.
I did have to do some reshoots, despite my desire to keep this real. Those were because camera 1 went all squiffy and the footage was unwatchable. You can tell in the video because my shirt changes. I tried to keep it as close as the original. No false narrative. No bullshit. This is amateur food porn, and may it ever be so.
Except for the amateur part. I want to be paid.
Now go cook something. Try to fuck it up, maybe. Enjoy the journey.
