Breakfast

(from the Los Angeles Times)
Russ Parsons wrote this really great thing in the LA Times about waffles – here’s a tiny bit of it.

I’ve got a thing for waffles.

For me, there is no better treat on a Saturday or Sunday morning. I don’t care whether the rest of my time is spent balancing checkbooks and cleaning out the garage, but as long as I’ve had waffles, it’s been a good weekend.

Before there was IHOP, there was Gwynn’s. 

When I was a kid in suburban Teaneck, New Jersey, it was always a treat to go for Sunday brunch with my family at Gwynn’s on Teaneck Road.  Gwynn’s seemed swanky and grown-up to me.  Outside, it was painted white brick, and inside it was cool and darkish, with comfy booths.  My mother would order her coffee, and the cream came in tiny, glass pitchers with little round cardboard pull-tabs on top.  She only used a drop and then gave me the supreme pleasure of letting me drink the rest of the cream from its miniature jar.  Sometimes, if she had a second cup, I got another taste of the thick, heavenly liquid that would contribute to the need for Lipitor years later.  Compared to my very picky little sister, who ate only cream cheese and jelly, I was “a good eater” with a passion for pancakes, waffles and French toast.

Then, in the mid 60’s, across town on Cedar Lane, a new place opened up, part of a chain that seemed to be popping up all over America: the International House of Pancakes.  People were talking about it, and my cousins three towns away had already been to another one and were jazzed.  It didn’t have Gwynn’s sophistication or my beloved mini-pots of cream, but on our first visit, I discovered silver dollar pancakes – a plateful of glorious, child-sized, golden ducats.  I was hooked!  Soon thereafter, chocolate chip pancakes appeared on the menu, and I became an under-age chocoholic.

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.

Once upon a time, when my future husband and I had just started dating, he called me one Saturday morning to see what I was up to. I was in the car with my friend Phoebe and a trunk full of laundry.

“We’re going to Michael Green’s for breakfast,” I said. I had him on my Reagan-era car phone, which had a curly cord and a speakerphone, which may as well have been a tin can attached to a length of string.

Peter thought about this for a moment. “Is that a restaurant or a person’s house?” he asked.