Breakfast

The Waffle House is sort of the unofficial flower of the Southern Interstate exit. Driving North from the Gulf Coast on I-65 for the past two years, I have seen the yellow signs blossoming in hamlets from Alabama to Kentucky, and been intrigued, imagining fluffy waffles with real syrup, folksy waitresses with coffee pots, and an enlightening cross section of humanity. My path to Waffle Nirvana was blocked only by my mother, who has a phobia about unclean public bathrooms which I believe is a gene-linked trait in Jewish women of her generation. Having been a teacher, she is able to “hold it” like a camel retains water in the desert, but during the long trip home from Florida she insists, not unreasonably, that we choose lunch stops at restaurants where she can use the restrooms without sedation. 

It happened suddenly.  One minute we were together, touching, my hands on his body, as close as always, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, signs of dire distress.  It sounded like a heave or a deep sigh.  But I heard a click in there somewhere as well.  Something more than the whirl of a distant fan.  I heard danger.  I heard Mac’s finally gasp.

And then, after four years together, nine to ten hours a day, seven days a week, for all 52 weeks of the year – half of those trying to work, the other half simply searching together for answers – it was over. 

Lately, he was the first thing I reached for in the morning after my husband, who gets up early, was gone.  I pulled him off the table and woke him up from his sleep.  I demanded that he bring me the New York Times.  That was always the start.

My ideal breakfast is baked eggs, a nice thick ham steak and wondrously high popovers, this is the food that makes Sunday mornings so special and different from the other 6 days. Sundays are the time to slowdown and reflect on your week and your loved ones in your non formal pajamas for hours. A nice and slow day...

When we were kids my Mother always made baked eggs, that is what she called them. The English like to call them shirred eggs, but the concept is exactly the same. Because it is a dish based in the 60’s we start with a Pyrex custard cup, you know the clear glass cups that hold 7 or 8 ounces, cups that were basic kitchen equipment before we all got so sophisticated.

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?”