I was finishing a jar of extremely hot peppers (7 pot primos) that I had fermenting on Thanksgiving day. I made a hot sauce with them and cantaloupe. I had them in a pan at a low simmer to meld the flavors. The problem was the steam coming off was potent as hell. It filled the house when everyone was arriving and coughing from the hot sauce in the air, me included. We had to open all the windows, dig out the fans to get it out of the house, freezing everyone in the process.
As much as I love my wife and her family … in their family there is only one color for gravy … white … basic, bland, tasteless, empty, vacant, soulless, heartless white.
The best part is that I don’t think they like ‘Ma’s gravy’ either.
They cover their food with the tasteless white gravy and then dose it with lots and lots of salt everywhere. Even as we ate, people just regularly picked up the salt to sprinkle some more on during the entire meal. A telling part is that no one, even me, would think of consuming the gravy without salt.
The funniest thing was the next year I went for Christmas. They guarded the gravy from me. I still helped in the kitchen because they liked that. Then just when the meal started, they set aside a cup of gravy for me in a pot and said I could make my own if I wanted to. I was polite and said that I would have ‘Ma’s gravy’ instead … and reached for the salt. Lol