Suck it, Paula Deen!

Okay, I'm pissed.  Who the hell would recommend a cup (A CUP!!!) of salt for a collard green recipe?  I googled a recipe (and here - case in point - is why I hate recipes) by the PD, Queen of the South herself, and my resultant collard greens tasted like, well, you guessed it, ass.  Ok, maybe not ass (that's raw cauliflower, if you recall), but definitely like taking a handful of mud from the Dead Sea and chewing on that for about an hour.  Seriously inedible.  Overrated.  Paula Deen can kiss my ass.  Oh, and BTW, this is where I need to apologize for my non-French-speaking friends (Heather? Marci?), i.e. those who never say "pardon my French" before making a statement.  Sorry, I can't help it.  Don't unfriend me please.

I've found that the MUCH better "guideline" (as I prefer to call it) comes from Guy Fieri  As always, I have to doctor it up, and not just cuz imma doctor - I added a little brown sugar, a few cloves of chopped garlic when sauteeing the onions (never can have enough garlic, I like to say), and I like pancetta (Richmonders: two words - Belmont Butchery) instead of bacon or salted ham, just cuz.

Oh - and I also like apple cider vinegar better than plain old white vinegar. Mostly because it reminds me of Martinelli's Apple Cider at New Year's Eve when I was a little kid...but I digress. And the pancetta should be added to the mixture to simmer for a while - not at the end - so the collards get some good piggy flavor at the end.

I also like to finish off nearly all dishes with my favorite fixin', Sriracha, which you can buy in packs of 6 on Amazon if you are not so blessed as to live within driving distance of a 99 Ranch Market (helloooo! Asian Heaven!!).

End result below:

And if anyone has a favorite grandma's greens recipe, bring it on, cuz I'm just a temporary Southerner, fakin' it.  Everyone knows I'm Southern...Californian!!!