The Grits Gene

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The Grits Gene skipped my generation. My grandmother, from a long line of South Carolinians, lived in Greenwich Village, where she made grits for her famed Christmas Breakfast. I detested them. I did like the ham biscuits she also served.

For me, somehow, biscuit love was transmogrified to biscuits with sausage gravy. In San Francisco, Brenda’s French Soul Food is the spot for a B and SG fix. My own biscuits lean towards scones. I’ve never lived in a state where White Lily Flour was readily available. When my son visits, he makes great sausage gravy, and my daughter, whose lived in Atlanta for ten years, great biscuits.

Now I’m in Chapel Hill. The flour is here, but I’m not cooking for a crowd, nor firing up the oven in this heat.

I’m on a quest to find the best in town. Besides a tasty breakfast, this quest gives me an opportunity to look and listen to the people in the dozens of cafés and restaurants along Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, Main Street in Carrboro and other arteries in hub around the University of North Carolina.

As one menu informed me, there are about 800 calories in an order of biscuits, gravy and two-eggs-over-easy, so this meal is good for breakfast and lunch, but not something to eat everyday, even on the way to my water aerobics class.

Findings to date:

Saturday at the Carolina Coffee Shop

The first Saturday of the fall semester: students jam the booths. No wonder, because in spite of the name, the Coffee Shop has a full bar, where I sit and ask the bartender if she’s heard the news about the founder of Bulleit bourbon, accused by his daughter of molestation. Yes, she has, and they are taking it off their shelf.

Breakfast arrives. The gravy is as I like it: peppery and full of sausage meat. The biscuits puzzle me: chewy, soft, as though yeast risen. I suspect this is the softer wheat flour; mine are flakier on top and edges.

The manager says the Carolina Coffee Shop, established 1912, is the oldest restaurant in North Carolina. He corrects himself: oldest and still operating as a restaurant. Last year, a group of loyal Tar Heels invested in the restaurant in order to keep it next to the University; I’m reminded of the similar effort to keep Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park.

I tell the manager about my quest. Of course, he wants to know my verdict: The Carolina Coffee Shop’s B and SG is a contender.

Monday at The Egg and I

     I forgot to mention that my trusty steed for this adventure is Chapel Hill’s extensive and free public transportation system. The driver of the first bus kindly points me to where to catch the second one. I get off a stop too early. It’s Monday, and I’m on my way to my water aerobics class at the Y, in one of the planned communities along this stretch of heavily trafficked highway.

     Located on the ground floor of a new mixed-use building, The Egg and I franchise is in almost every state except California. A, t 8:30 am, its booths are slowly filling up. I’m seated too far from the nearest customers to eavesdrop on their conversations. I note a group of business people who greet an elderly gentleman as Coach; this is a sports loving burg.

     The waitress tells me her favorite breakfast is the bacon and avocado omelet, which should alert me that for the Egg and I chain, biscuits and sausage gravy are a nod to the local. I tell her that the gravy could use more sausage. I’ll go back for the avocados, but not their B and SG.

Tuesday at Time-Out

My Tuesday plan was breakfast and then a visit to the Ackland Art Museum. Time- is located literally across the street from the heart of the UNC Campus. I had forgotten that this was the site of Silent Sam, a Confederate memorial statue, toppled exactly a year ago in protest of its message of white supremacy, a story I’ll tell in my blog that is not about cooking and eating!

Time-Out has won national awards for its Chicken and Cheddar Biscuit. When I ordered biscuits and sausage gravy, the owner, Mr. Eddie Williams, said he only makes sausage gravy on weekends. I told him about my quest, but that I’d settle for some of his great looking beef gravy over my biscuits. He insisted he’d make up a batch of sausage gravy to go my biscuit and a bacon and cheddar omelet.

This sausage gravy recipe is at least forty years in the making because that is how long Eddie’s been there. He wanted to know where I acquired my love for S and BG, so I explained my grandmother and Brenda’s. He’s never heard of Chicory Coffee, but knows beignet.

While it’s cooking, Mr. Williams asks me if San Francisco is as horrible as he’s heard. This is a question that I can’t answer, but think about as I learn about this new-to-me part of the country. So I tell him that the people San Francisco, California and those of Chapel Hill, North Carolina seem alike in many ways. As it happens, I can point to his Hispanic chef and janitor as a similarity.

Sausage gravy, biscuit and bacon-cheddar omelete arrive. No wonder Time-Out has been here for two generations. Lots of sausage, peppery, and the biscuit has a crust to it.

And so, dear readers, Time-Out has set the bar high, and is king of these three! Further research, at Mama Dip’s and Neal’s Deli, informs me that this only-on-weekends is trending, but there are many exceptions. Onwards, Sancho Panza, onwards.