When I was a kid, I was pretty much a geek. At nine I started to
stutter so badly that the school put me into a class for “special”
students and my parents sent me to a psychologist. The approach
favored by the psychologist was to withhold talking until I said
something. Since I didn’t want to stutter and didn’t want to talk to
him anyway, we mostly spent 50 minutes in silence.
My father was a pragmatist which meant he figured that whatever was
was, so if I was socially awkward and stuttered, that’s who I was and
he left it at that. My mother however was an optimist. She had
proudly attended Hunter Model School in New York and felt that she was
part of the liberal intelligentsia that wouldn’t rest until the world
was cleansed of poverty, racism, sexism, and war. Reading about the
latest armed conflict in the newspaper, she would proclaim with
frustration, “Why can’t people just get along?”
Breakfast
Breakfast
Pick of the Week: Heritage Apple Pie
My Dad used to eat chocolate doughnuts for breakfast until he met my Mom who thought that eating chocolate doughnuts for breakfast was up there with, say, cold pizza.
As a result I can’t imagine eating chocolate doughnuts, at all. I think breakfast should be confined to breakfast food (or if you’re on a diet, something to skip.) But someone sent us an apple pie last week that I can imagine having for breakfast (and lunch and dinner).
It’s an amazing apple pie. It comes in the mail, It bakes in the oven in a brown paper bag (I don’t know what the paper bag has to do with anything but it’s true). And it’s full of apples that are still crunchy and tart and sweet and ambrosia-like. It has hints of lemon and bites of sweet, a perfect crust and something sort of crumbly.
It’s called the Heritage Apple pie and it’s won a lot of awards and it’s made by hand and shipped to you from their small bakery in Texas (of all places). And I ate three pieces in two days (and I don’t even eat sweets) and I wish we had one in our kitchen right now.
Benediction
They say you always remember your first. And were we talking about a
kiss, I remember sitting on a recessed bench filled with orange life
jackets on the second level of the Boblo Island ferry leaning towards
my sixth grade “girlfriend” Monica. I remember the stench of rotting
sea life from the Detroit River and the paprika scent of Better Made
BBQ potato chips mingling with the floral waft of Giorgio perfume from
her neck (though I suspect it was the Parfums de Coeur Designer
Imposters knock-off—after all what 12-year-old can afford the real
thing?) as we hesitantly merged our lips. Were we talking about sex, I
remember that too, but kissing and telling is one thing, getting laid
and doing so is quite another.
What I’m really talking about here is my first Eggs Benedict, the legendary English muffin raft conveying tasty castaways of salty pork and jiggly poached eggs awash in waves of silky hollandaise. And of that, I do not remember my first.
Though, I suspect it was at an all-you-can-eat buffet, one of those restaurant-larder-clearing affairs featuring an orgy of tangled snow-crab legs, a miserable checked-pant-wearing short-order cook manning a butane-fired omelet station and mountains of chartreuse-rinded unripe cantaloupe. That means my first Benedict was likely a steam-table-parched muffin topped with Canadian bacon parchment and a sulfurous over-fried egg mottled with a gloppy, broken mock-hollandaise. Thankfully I subscribe to the idea that you try everything twice, because you never know if the first example was cooked right.
Pasteis de Belem
"I just returned from Lisbon and only have one thing to say - Belem Pasteis de Nata"
Thanks
to a reader for reminding me of what is the can't miss taste of Lisbon.
While there are wonderful wines, tasty sausages, perfect cups of
espresso and crispy salt cod fritters that all deserve your attention,
you haven't truly experienced Lisbon until you have made it through the
winding labyrinth of the cafe and bakery, Pasteis de Belem, in a pretty waterfront neighborhood of Lisbon and had a few fresh warm pastries.
Asparagus Egg Bake for Two
Large pans filled with a billowy mixture of oven-baked eggs, bread and vegetables is always a good choice for breakfast when you need to feed a crowd of hungry sleepyheads. But what about feeding just two people who love to sleep in on a cool, cloudy, drizzly no-work-day morning? Just have a couple of ramekins of Asparagus Egg Bake in the refrigerator.
While the water is heating for the French press and bacon is sizzling in a cast-iron skillet on the stove, two ramekins filled to the top with layers of chunks of English muffins, cheese, eggs, asparagus and chives can be baking in the oven. What a way to start the day.
Several spears of fresh asparagus that had been roasted to eat with grilled steaks were in a zip-top bag in the refrigerator when I decided to put together a couple of breakfast dishes to have on hand during the long holiday weekend. In the refrigerator, I knew they would be good for a few days, if necessary.
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