I've taken to eating chicken fried steak. Now I resisted, and for the longest time even the very words 'chicken fried steak' sent a shiver of gustatory horror down my spine. I imagined a twitching slab of gray meat, wrapped in breadcrumbs and served with artery hardening gravy. Crunchy on the outside, warm and rubbery on the inside.
Eventually, I broke down under the constant pressure from my co-workers and tried the stuff, and lo and behold, it's actually very nice. Tasty, filling and with the only possible down side that after each meal I'm unaccountably filled with the desire to wave a hat in the air, shout 'yehaw' and discharge a firearm.
Unfortunately, I seem to have developed some related aberrant, and some would say abhorrent' behavior. You see, I've started eating it with the BROWN GRAVY. Shocking? Yes. Morally wrong? Perhaps. Tasty? Oh yes. Now the white gravy is fine. I mean, it tastes ok, although it's a tad on the thick side for my personal likes. It just looks so anemic. I like my gravy to be a hearty, brown liquid filled with rich, meaty goodness and so I've taken to ordering the chicken fried steak (or CFS as it's affectionately known) with brown gravy.
I'll pause a moment while those of you who are feeling faint can gather your wits and generally dab a trembling hand to your fevered forehead.
Obviously this kind of activity has left me a marked man. You don't sit in a diner in the middle of Texas (well, the bottom end of Texas) and munch on CFS with BROWN GRAVY and not expect, at the very least, people to threaten your life, limb and worse, your hat. (By the way, I don't actually *wear* a hat, although I devoutly wish I had the nerve to start. If you are ever in Texas and see a brown-gravy smeared Englishman gazing wistfully at the window of the local hat store, that's probably me.)
It's a risk I'm prepared to run though. When one finds the truth, one must bear witness to it whatever the risk. So I'm manfully bearing the derision of co-workers and complete strangers, shoulders squared, jaw set (except for occasional chewing,) face into the wind. Full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes. Actually, I think some of my co-workers are pleased that so far this is the only overtly odd behavior they've had to put up with. Given the fact that I'm not only English, but only recently transplanted from California, I suspect they're just glad I'm not striding around the office in a floral-print dress, smearing yogurt and tofu on my crotch and announcing that I'm the love-child of a space alien and Cher.
Not that I would, you understand. I mean, I hate Tofu. Now brown gravy.. that would be different.