An interesting thing has happened to me over this past year. Almost every time there has been a big family dinner on my wife’s side of the family, I have been press ganged into making the gravy. Up until this year, my gravy making has been hit and miss. I would more often than not have large lumps in the gravy … I’m sure this had had my gravy making grandma McCue turning in her grave. My mother on the other hand (just like my grandma did in her day) consistently makes excellent tasting, wonderfully smooth gravy. Her ability to make great gravy, along with my wife’s ability to tell people that I “make gravy” (without commenting on the quality of the gravy I make), has made it so that my sister-in-laws have consistently asked me to make the gravy at our family dinners for about a year now. No one every asks me to make gravy on my side of the family (I will occasionally be asked to cut the meat). They all look to the experts that my mother has personally trained over the years (my sisters). I have watched the process of gravy making since I was a child, but did not have any practical experience until after I was married. The experience I did get after marrying Heather, didn’t come that frequently, and occasionally produced disaster (like the time I put the pyrex pan on the element to warm the gravy… until the pan exploded, delaying Thanksgiving dinner by an hour or so.)

A few years ago Heather’s mother and father passed away. Her dad was the “gravy guy” in the family until his passing, and it appears that I have inherited his role in family dinners. For now, I am the go to guy for gravy. I have consistently made good tasting, non lumpy gravy all year now! I’m confident that my grandmother McCue smiles down on me every time I make her wonderful tasting, non lumpy, southern Albertan gravy. I’ve also noticed that when my wife tells people that I can make gravy, she doesn’t just stop by saying that I can “make gravy”, but qualifies it by saying that I make “good” or “excellent” gravy. Kind of weird that circumstances have made me the “Gravy Guy” in at least half of my world.