Best Meal of the Day
I have always loved breakfast. When people tell me they don't really eat it, I'm baffled. How can they pass up the chance at fare like pecan waffles, blueberry pancakes, Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts? Not to mention the savory stuff--oh, sweet fancy Moses, how I miss New York bagels with lox and cream cheese! Even something as simple as cream of wheat with brown sugar or steel-cut Irish oatmeal with golden raisins and bananas can be wonderful. I could never pick a favorite breakfast food, but there's one advantage eggs have over every other choice--Stinger makes them.
Stinger is the undisputed King of the Egg at our house. And he worked hard to earn that title. He doesn't just scramble the eggs--he delicately whisks them with butter, salt, and pepper over very low heat until they form soft, silky curds. You need a spoon to eat them. He spent hours watching and rewatching Julia Child's show on omelettes, perfecting his technique. Now, we have perfect French omelettes, beautiful, thin envelopes of barely cooked egg around fillings like sauteed spinach and mushrooms with scallions or diced ham and gruyere. Even fried eggs, that specialty of short-order cooks everywhere, gets the royal treatment in our kitchen. Stinger consulted Fernand Point and now his process for preparing eggs sunnyside up involves gently cooking the egg on one side until the white is just opaque, then pouring hot melted butter over the top to set it. And I'm here to tell you, old Fernand knew what he was talking about--the results are like no diner egg you've ever had. We like to serve them on buttered toast; in the pic above, it's this fabulous seed bread a friend of ours baked. Yum!
So what's your favorite breakfast dish, and who in your family is the master of it?
I make scrambled eggs like Stinger, low and slow until they're custardy and pale butter yellow. People often think I put cheese in them. I don't, they just come out so good that way.
I'm the breakfast queen in our house. Eggs any way, home fries, bacon, sausage, grits...those are my tools of mass destruction. I can do a decent French toast, but alas, my pancakes are just okay. Bisquik is my friend.
Kristen Painter said... March 31, 2009 at 10:02 AM
have you had scrambled tofu? sounds gross, i know, but it is DELICIOUS! let's set a brunch date and i will convert you!
Unknown said... March 31, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Can Stinger come to my house and cook breakfast for me? I promise I'll do the dishes.
For weekend breakfast I love bagels with tofu cream cheese or anything with eggs and bacon.
I also never skip breakfast. I never skip a meal. Maybe that's my problem. LOL.
Jen said... March 31, 2009 at 2:33 PM
Mmmm... my favorite breakfast food is french toast. Besides being ultra yummy, it brings back wonderful memories of the Girl Scouts. Yep. That's where I learned to cook them. You haven't had french toast until you've made them over a campfire:)
Maria Geraci said... March 31, 2009 at 5:10 PM
I'm with you, french toast is my standard. I went to college in NJ, and almost every time we went to a diner, I had to test the french toast and chocolate milkshake to see how they measured up. Can't really handle it for breakfast anymore, but still love them individually.
Jess said... April 1, 2009 at 5:02 PM
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