Sage Breakfast Sausage

I am standing in my kitchen at 5:47 AM on a Monday, and there is a pot of grits on the stove that I started twelve minutes ago because Marcus told me yesterday — with the specific kind of disdain that only an eleven-year-old boy can manufacture — that he's tired of cereal. "You're a cook, Mama," he said, as if I'd been withholding grits from him out of spite. So here I am. Making grits at a quarter to six because my son has decided that Lucky Charms are beneath him, and because I can't argue with a child who just called me a cook like it was both a compliment and an accusation.

Jasmine will eat whatever I put in front of her. She's nine and agreeable in the way that second children learn to be — she watched her brother throw fits about dinner for years and decided early that compliance was the easier path. Smart girl. She'll have cheese grits and a glass of orange juice and she'll say "thank you, Mama" and put her dish in the sink without being asked. If I could bottle whatever makes Jasmine Jasmine and give it to the seventh graders I counsel at school, I would solve adolescence.

The College Park townhouse is quiet at this hour. Three bedrooms, one and a half baths, a kitchen that I have made mine through sheer force of will and a cast iron skillet that Mama gave me when I moved in. The mortgage is $1,247 a month, which I know because I write the check every month and feel the exact same mixture of pride and panic every single time. I bought this place in 2013 with a down payment scraped from three years of careful saving and the knowledge that my children would have a home that was ours. Not Curtis and Brenda's. Not Terrell's. Ours.

Speaking of Terrell — Marcus's father sent a birthday card last month with a twenty-dollar bill in it and no note. Twenty dollars. For his firstborn son's eleventh birthday. I put the money in Marcus's savings account and told him his father loves him, which is probably true in whatever limited way Terrell Washington loves anyone who isn't Terrell Washington. Marcus didn't ask follow-up questions. He's learning not to.

The big thing — the thing that sits on my chest every morning between the alarm and the grits — is Mama. Brenda Jackson was diagnosed with colon cancer in September 2015, and nothing in my world has been straight since. She's doing chemo at Emory. Second cycle. Daddy drives her every Tuesday and Thursday and sits in the waiting room reading the same Sports Illustrated he's had since November. Mama says the chemo makes her tired, which is Brenda-speak for "I can barely get out of bed but I will not worry my children." She's fifty-nine. Fifty-nine is not old. Fifty-nine is not supposed to be sick.

I drive to Cascade Heights every Saturday morning now. I let myself in with my key, and Mama is usually on the couch with a blanket, watching something on HGTV because she says she likes watching people make decisions about countertops when her own decisions feel too heavy. I cook. I make a week's worth of meals — smothered chicken, collard greens, rice and gravy, whatever Mama says sounds good. Daddy hovers. He's not a hoverer by nature — Curtis Jackson is a man who fixes things with his hands and minds his own business — but he hovers now. He follows Mama from room to room like if he lets her out of his sight, she'll disappear. I don't tell him I do the same thing.

At work, I'm good. I'm always good at work. I am a school counselor at a middle school in East Point, and I am the person that twelve-year-olds come to when they can't tell anyone else. I sit in my little office with the door closed and listen to children whose parents are in jail, whose houses don't have heat, whose older brothers got shot, whose bodies are changing and nobody told them what to expect. I listen and I hand them tissues and I help them make plans. I am very good at making plans for other people. It's my own life where the plans get fuzzy.

This week I made Mama's cornbread twice — once for us at the townhouse and once to take to Cascade Heights on Saturday. Marcus ate three pieces and said "this is good, Mama" without being prompted, which from an eleven-year-old boy is basically a Michelin star. Jasmine helped me mix the batter and I let her pour it into the hot skillet, the way Mama let me when I was her age. The sizzle when the batter hits the greased iron is the sound of every woman in my family, going back as far as I can trace. Miss Ernestine taught Mama. Mama taught me. I'm teaching Jasmine. And somewhere in that chain, something passes that isn't just cornmeal and buttermilk. It's the knowing that you can make something from almost nothing and feed the people who matter.

I'm going to be fine. We're all going to be fine. That's what I tell myself at 5:47 AM while the grits bubble and the house is quiet and my mama has cancer and my children need breakfast. We're going to be fine, because the alternative is not an option, and Brenda Jackson did not raise a woman who accepts alternatives.

Marcus called me a cook, and he wasn’t wrong — but grits alone don’t make a breakfast, they make a beginning. The mornings I feel most like myself are the ones where there’s something sizzling alongside that pot, something that fills the whole townhouse with a smell that says somebody here loves you. Mama always had sausage on a Saturday, and when I started making my own from scratch — seasoned the way I like it, with real sage and a little heat — it became mine too. This is the recipe I reach for when the morning is heavy and the people around that table need more than cereal.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 6 (2 patties each)

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs ground pork (80/20 blend preferred)
2 teaspoons dried rubbed sage
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon cold water
1 tablespoon neutral oil or bacon drippings, for the pan

Instructions

Mix the seasoning. In a small bowl, combine sage, salt, pepper, thyme, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, and brown sugar. Stir until evenly blended.
Season the pork. Place ground pork in a large bowl. Sprinkle seasoning mixture over the top, then add the cold water. Using your hands, gently mix until the spices are fully incorporated — do not overwork the meat or the patties will be tough.
Form the patties. Divide the mixture into 12 equal portions. Roll each into a ball, then press flat into a patty about 1/2-inch thick and 2 1/2 inches across. Place formed patties on a parchment-lined plate.
Cook in batches. Heat oil or drippings in a cast iron skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add patties in a single layer without crowding — work in 2 batches if needed. Cook 3 to 4 minutes per side, until golden brown and cooked through (internal temp 160°F). Reduce heat slightly if browning too fast.
Drain and rest. Transfer cooked patties to a paper-towel-lined plate and let rest 2 minutes before serving. Serve alongside grits, eggs, or cornbread — or all three.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sage Breakfast Sausage — The Side That Belongs Next to the Grits