We all have food memories from childhood. For some, it's Mom filling the kitchen with wonderful smells. For others, it's Dad out over the grill making amazing things happen with sectors of cow or pig.

It will come as no surprise, given my choice of vocation, that I've got LOTS of food memories. They have inspired many of my culinary explorations, as I've sought to re-create or improve upon flavors and dishes from my childhood. In a way, it's very much akin to storytelling. We "hear" the stories (recipes) from our childhood, and pass them along.

For most of us who have parents from the Deep South, at least one of those kitchen memories has to do with fried chicken. There are as many recipes as chickens have feathers, and I'm not going to presume here to give the "definitive" one. In fact, we're not really going to talk about fried chicken at all, except as the main dish for a meal incorporating one of the finest creations ever to come out of a saucepan: cream gravy.

I remember watching the platter fill with pieces of golden-fried chicken, and then watching as my mother would drain off most of the grease, leaving just a bit along with all the "goody," her term for the blackened and browned bits of chicken yumminess left in the pan.

She would then add a healthy dose of black pepper and begin to add flour, dusting it into the pan from a cupped palm, stirring constantly. At some point, defined only by her skill, she would stop adding flour and continue to stir for a bit. Then, the milk would go in, again unmeasured, while her ancient wooden spoon (which I'd received the business end of for numerous transgressions) continued stirring.

The resulting concoction was almost custard-thick and off-white, with black flecks throughout from the chicken bits and pepper. In fact, it was almost as thick as the mashed potatoes it was served over, and it would nicely coat a drumstick dragged through it.

Jump forward a decade or so, to my first restaurant job in the kitchen at Hooter's. Shortly after hiring on, I learned how to make clam chowder. The process starts with making a roux, a butter/flour combination which is cooked slowly, with constant stirring, over a low flame until the desired color is reached.

There are many colors of roux, from white to deep chocolate brown, and they all have different properties and flavors. Their main reason for being is to thicken soups, sauces and gravies.

I proved to have an almost unnatural knack for making good roux, something I was inordinately proud of until I met enough Cajun cooks to learn that my skill was really nothing all that special. Roux, despite what some chefs will tell you, is most definitely not rocket science.

Now grab hold of the Magic Cast-Iron Time Machine again and come up to present day. I was planning to barbecue some chicken for dinner, but Mother Nature intervened, as she so often does, with a deluge of near-biblical proportions.

I pulled out my trusty nonstick roasting pan, put the rack in, dusted the chicken with some McCormick's Montreal Chicken seasoning and slapped it in a 350° F. oven until the internal temperature hit 165° F. I took the chicken out, heated the broiler, then put the pan back in for five minutes, until the skin was nicely browned.

After a few minutes standing, the chicken was perfect. I saw the small amount of fat and all the little bits of chicken in the bottom of the pan, and suddenly a light bulb came on in my brain.

You've probably seen it coming, but it took me well over a decade to realize that a roux doesn't have to be made with butter, just about any fat will do.

What mom was doing, all those years ago, was making a roux. Why this never occurred to me, I'll never know. I'm sure we all saw our parents do things in the kitchen that, back then, seemed like some sort of voodoo. To me, her throwing flour, then milk into chicken grease was magic of a sort to impress Dumbledore, given what was produced.

So back to me and my chicken pan. Since the pan was nonstick, it was a matter of a couple of swipes with a spatula to get all the goodies out of the bottom of the pan into a small ramekin. Knowing that the basic formula for roux is equal weights of flour and fat, I weighed an empty ramekin, tared out that amount, and weighed the one with the chicken drippings. I had a precious 3 ounces of fat and chunkies to work with.

I put the drippings in a small saucepan and turned the heat to medium-low. Stirring constantly, I added the flour, a heaping teaspoon at a time, until it was all added and the mixture had taken on the texture of slightly runny paste. As it heated, the mixture tightened until it became very stiff, with a beige color and rich, chickeny aroma.

Now came the part that was making me nervous. I had no idea how much milk to add. I knew too much would cause irreparable damage, so I decided to be conservative and start with one cup. Swapping the wooden spoon for my trusty whisk, I slowly drizzled the milk in, whisking constantly. I increased the heat to just over medium and kept whisking. Very soon, the mixture began to bubble and thicken. It seemed a bit too thick, so I added another half-cup of milk. After four minutes on the heat, the roux had done its magic and I had a pot full of cream gravy that would have made mom proud, I'd like to think.

The only really critical operation here is making the roux. Turn the heat up too high or stop stirring for a minute and you can end up with burned flour, and there's just no way to fix that. Keep the heat no higher than medium-low and don't stop stirring, even if Elvis shows up and asks you to hand him a doughnut.

It's also important to be conservative with the milk. You can always add more, but once you've added too much, you're in trouble. Bear in mind that your gravy will not achieve full thickness until it gets good and hot, almost boiling.

This formula, as I mentioned earlier, can be used with just about any fat. Saturday morning, I'm looking forward to biscuits with sausage gravy.

Have you done any gravy exploring? Recaptured any old family recipes? I'd love to hear your stories and see your recipes. Drop me a line anytime!