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Pancakes!
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Maybe youâre a better cook than the people who served you brown gravy before.
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Now all theyâre missing is coke on the label 
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Well that would be my mother. I love my mother, and sheâs really good with baked goods. With everything else, sheâs very much from the âcook it until itâs good and dead, and then cook it some more to be sureâ school of cooking. The first time I had pork chops cooked properly when I was in college was a revelation.
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My late momâs kitchen motto was âItâs OK - itâs just scorched a little on the bottom.â 
The first time I made gravy, it was after my mom had died. It also turned out to be incredible, and Iâd never been nuts about it, either. Mom loved gravy and made it w/just about every beefly dish.
I read a book of insults at the bookstore where I worked, and gleefully whipped out one for her: âYo mommaâs so fat, she thinks gravy is a beverage!â Mom immediately replied, âGRAVY?! Gimme a straw!â 
She once demanded I make fried eggs for her, and instead of butter, I used a little Italian dressing. She was furious and refused to even try them. My BF and I love 'em that way. 
She wanted everything made the way she did it, and hated every innovation of mine. I loathed it whenever she made me cook: in the kitchen I was forbidden to think for myself. I was screamed at for adding a tiny pinch of cumin to mac & cheese, which I felt made it even more delicious. 
The first time I made pork chops for my BF and myself, they were the best Iâd ever had. Iâd marinated 'em in Italian dressing, added tons of garlic and onions, generous amâts of black pepper and basil, and they were wonderful. The first time I marinated 'em in pineapple juice, garlic powder, ginger, and basil, my BFâs first bite blew his mind so hard he almost fell out of his chair. A delightful sauce also resulted, which went V nicely with the rice, pineapple chunks and bell pepper strips.
Mom usually bought crummy and tough pieces of beef, never did any tenderizing, and her V rare marinades lasted maybe an hour or two. I marinate stuff for a day or two, even turn 'em over a coupla times, and usually remember to stab pork chops a few times w/a fork before marinating.
My BF agrees that despite my motherâs most earnest efforts, I have become an excellent cook 
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I was at my folks, helping my mom cook. I donât usually make gravy. She had made it, asked me to whisk it for a bit.
Me: Iâve been whisking this steadily for five minutes, but these lumps arenât going away.
Mom: (takes a peek) Those are the chopped onions.
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Feel this is obligatory at the moment-Paul Kelly, How to Make Gravy https://youtu.be/iISWrBk8KZc?si=dGbcLFm2FGJdIScS
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I sometimes put chopped onions into a roasting bag (and diced carrots, whatever alliums are around) with the meat and the liquid goes into the gravy. I might not be too aggressive with the straining so they may end up in the gravy. Not everything needs to be smooth puréed mush.I mean I appreciate the effort in proper French mash potatoes but the reality is they are much, much tastier with skin in them and some texture. Not even close.
My mam thought I needed to be able to cook for myself, particularly when I was 15 and went vegetarian. She bought veggie recipe books and helped me learn. I took over my cooking then because why should someone cook just for me? She was pretty happy to let me take over as much of the cooking as I was willing. She didnât love it, she was just stay at home. When my father retired he took over the cooking entirely. He was also good to work with in the kitchen. Sure he wanted meat done more than Iâd consider but your house, done your way. My family are all philistines anyway!
Only my brother can tolerate decent spice and rare meat like grown ups.
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I had chopped onions in mine, but I sauteed them first until just starting to brown, and I had chopped them pretty small. So by the time the gravy was done, the onions had mostly just melted and dissolved into the gravy.
I feel like, at least in my momâs case, itâs a result of her learning to cook from her mother, who lived through the Great Depression. My mom was born in 1941. During the Depression, and during parts of WWII, fresh meat wasnât always available, and grocers and butchers kept it on the shelf longer than they would today. So people compensated by cooking the shit out of everything to make sure it wouldnât kill you, and then just blasting it with a shit ton of salt and pepper to hide the funkiness. And this is how my mom cooks most meats to this day. I also discovered the pleasure of a medium-rare steak when I was in college, and when I would go home for the summer, I tried to get her to cook mine that way, and she could not being herself to do it. She was convinced it wasnât safe to eat that way. She finally compromised and let me pull my steak off the grill when I wanted to. She still gags at the idea of eating anything raw, like sushi or sashimi.
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My mom is a very good cook and baker. She had a large cookbook library, which I read through (Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker from 1956, Diet for a Small Planet). At 80, she will still try making new recipes, usually from the Times. I was her helper in the kitchen, still am when I can. Both my parents worked when I was growing up, we were latchkey kids, and my mom would often leave messages or call and ask me to do some prep, either make a salad, making rice, cutting up veggies for stir fry, or marinate something. My dad is a good guy and generally a bad cook. One of our Thanksgiving traditions is for him to come in the kitchen and âhelpâ, which involves putting cooking implements/ingredients somewhere âsafeâ where we canât find them, until Mom gets annoyed and kicks him out of the kitchen, and we can then get stuff done more easily.
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The recipe I used, if anyone is interested, although I cut it in half. It makes a lot of pancakes. Even cut in half, it was way too many pancakes for two people.
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Either cooked pancakes or the batter freeze really well. Just put a cooked pancake in the toaster for a quick treat.
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Are we still playing âIâll show you mine if you show me yoursâ? 
Looks like thereâs been some shrinking of the packagingâŠcurrent size is 12 oz., mine is 16 oz.
Seems like that must be a fairly recent changeâmine has been open in the fridge for a while but says âBest if used by Nov 23 2026â so itâs not that old.
12 oz. would be better for me, actuallyâitâs an âon hand in case I need itâ thing, and I rarely use it up before I feel that what remains in the opened package should be tossed.
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Trying this out tonight, with some home made breadâŠ
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