A reason to go to Virginia

For shits and giggles, the fam and I headed south of the Potomac yesterday to buzz around Arlington for a spell. Not for any particular reason - well ms. wobs had heard some stuff about the art scene in Alexandria, but I'm kind of a dumbass when it comes to directions, so I herded us on to the Orange line and later rationalized that both cities start with an "A" and are in Northern Virginia, how different can they be?

But that's neither here nor there. When we did get off the train, we were hungry, and we soon stumbled upon a restaurant/bar with a line out the door that was full of hungover looking twenty-somethings who refused to take off their sunglasses - quintessential signs of a good breakfast spot. And on the menu, biscuits and gravy.

Oh biscuits and gravy, how do I love thee? With bourbon and jazz, you are one of the greatest things to come out of the South!

When I moved the Pacific Northwest after 21 years in Dixie, I never dreamed I was leaving behind good biscuits and gravy. I didn't know that it was possible to fuck it up. But I never found a decent plate anywhere during my time there. The gravy ranged from a thin gruel to a stomach churning flour paste with sausage added as an afterthought, not the creamy delicacy that graced my plate on Sunday morn. And for some reason, folks in the Northwest couldn't get the fucking biscuit right. It should be a golden brown vision, just to the point of crispy, but not overly crunchy (or as was more often the case, chewy), with a fluffy interior upon which the gravy floats. The biscuits I had to get used to were either glorified pieces of cake or, more heretically, a fucking english muffin. At the end, if I ever had a yen for some biscuits and gravy, I went down to the Morning Glory and contented myself with their vegan version - at least there I knew I wasn't setting myself up for disappointment.

But now I'm back down South - or at least close enough to hop a train and get there quickly - and while I miss all the better things the Northwest has - better beer, better buds, better coffee, better air, better topography, better rivers, etc. etc. - I do not miss your biscuits and gravy!