Currence - Tailgreat: How to Crush It at Tailgating

I am enormously impatient. At six years old I was busted for getting up in the middle of the night, the night before Christmas, and opening presentsnot just my presents, but everyones presents, because I just couldnt wait and I wanted to see what Santa had brought, well, everyone. I was impossible to date as a teenager because I could never be happy to wait and see the person I was infatuated with again after I dropped her off. I called. I snuck out of the house. I left campus when I wasnt supposed toall because I just couldnt wait. (Decades-late blanket apology.)

Cooking, it turns out, was a perfect career path, as far as immediate gratification is concerned. For all of the psychosis, stress, narcissism, and ego-flexing that goes along with kitchen work, not to mention the enormously uncomfortable conditions that come with commercial kitchens, the one thing that makes it all worthwhile for me is that you can immediately gauge someones response to something you have prepared for them the very second their mouth closes around the fork. That particular revelation sunk me for life. It completely satisfied my primal impatience.

When I moved to Oxford, Mississippi, to open my first restaurant, City Grocery, at the tender age of twenty-six, I moved into a town whose fall economy was largely driven by crowds of college football fans. Football, in the echelon of things I love, is a very close second to cooking, so living in a town where there was constant SEC (Southeast Conference) football action happening was a dream come true.

Games in the fall kick off at about 11:00 a.m., or 2:30 or 6:00 p.m. As an impatient soul, there is nothing more agonizing than waiting until 6:00 for a big game to start. If 6:00 a.m. were an option, Id be all for it. So I love when we can jump in on the first kickoff of the day and get the game going.

That said, there is little worse professionally than an early kickoff. We arrive at the catering kitchen at about 2:30 a.m. and are cooking full tilt by 3:00, with first orders going out at 6:00. It makes for brutal mornings, but by 11:00 a.m., our work is done and the game is on!

Our orders on those 11:00 a.m. kickoff days are heavy on breakfast items. Here are a few that travel well and will fuel your folks to scream and holler at an hour they would not likely do so otherwise.

SMOKED HAM BISCUITS with CULTURED BUTTER

Makes biscuits

Ham biscuits were a staple at cocktail parties when I was growing up. As mundane as they might sound, they were, first of all, an outstanding little bite, and second, the standard by which the ladies of New Orleans judged one another.

This recipe gets a bump from cultured butter. Once you have tasted it, there is just no way to ever look store-bought butter in the eye again. Making this fermented version of a comparatively bland kitchen staple is both easy and rewarding, and it will make you sound like a supercool, rock-star food geek when you can lecture your friends about the simple rigors and amazing rewards of fermented dairy. Add it to warm buttermilk biscuits and salty ham and blow your friends minds. Youll need to start the cultured butter 3 days in advance.

Cultured Butter

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons organic live yogurt culture (such as store-bought Greek yogurt)

2 teaspoons salt

Biscuits

2 cups self-rising flour, preferably White Lily (see Notes)

2 teaspoons sugar

teaspoon salt

teaspoon MSG (see Notes)

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 tablespoons frozen Cultured Butter or equal amount of store-bought

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, frozen

cup plus 2 tablespoons store-bought full-fat buttermilk (if you have not made your own cultured buttermilk)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

5 thin slices good-quality country ham

Make the butter Whisk together cream and yogurt in a glass or stainless-steel bowl, cover with cheesecloth, and allow to sit in a warm place for 3 days.

Remove the cheesecloth. The cream should have thickened to a yogurt-like consistency (if it is still slightly runny, dont worry, it will still whip up just fine). Transfer to a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and whisk on medium-low speed as if you were making whipped cream. Continue whisking until the cream seizes up, butter forms, and buttermilk begins to separate out. Remove butter solids from the bowl to a doubled-up piece of cheesecloth and leave the buttermilk in the bowl. Wrap the butter in cheesecloth. Squeeze the butter over the mixing bowl to release as much buttermilk as possible and set aside cup plus 2 tablespoons for the biscuits. Save the remaining buttermilk for future use. It will keep refrigerated for 8 weeks.