The REAL Breakfast Of Champions

"Goldilocks would pick this one."

-- Leo

Oatmeal with brown sugar 11-9-14

"You have to eat oatmeal or you'll dry up.

Anybody knows that."

-- Kay Thompson, Eloise

I helped Leo and his team win their big football game last night.

No, I didn't catch any passes or recover any fumbles. I didn't call any plays or break any tackles.

Hell, I didn't even break a sweat.

What I did do, though, was feed my boy a big, hot, creamy, hearty, satisfying bowl of oatmeal before he headed out the door for his morning practice session.

It was barely even 40 degrees outside, and I wanted him to start his day with a good hot breakfast that would warm his cockles and stick to his niblets.

Wheaties may call itself the "breakfast of champions," but Wheaties can suck it. I'll put my money on oatmeal every time.

Plus, I happen to make really good oatmeal.

Not instant. That shit's like eating wallpaper paste. 

Not pre-flavored. That shit's like eating pre-flavored wallpaper paste.

Not the fancy-schmancy steel-cut Irish ones either. I've tried them a few times, but I just don't love 'em. They're perfectly fine and healthy and everything. It's just a personal preference. No offense to the Irish, of which I am one. I just don't like chewy oatmeal.

No nuts, berries, seeds, granola, chocolate chips, quinoa or other add-ins. That shit just results in a textural cluster-fuck.

I'll take plain, old fashioned rolled oats every time. The simpler the better. I add a little salt, a tiny sprinkle of cinnamon and clove to warm up the flavor, and then I cook it gently until it's smooth and creamy and soft and luxurious.

A splash of milk is optional.

Brown sugar is non-negotiable.

Anyway, enough rhapsodizing.

My point is, when my son woke up in the morning, there was a steaming pot of hot, homemade oatmeal waiting for him. He ate a big Papa Bear-sized bowl and I ate a little Baby-Bear-sized bowl along with him.

Me: "How's it taste?"

Him: "Goldilocks would pick this."

Awwww. So sweet.

Anyway, Leo's team won 52 to 20, which makes him a champion. You do the math.

After he made an impressive open-field tackle, my husband high-fived me and said "It must have been the oatmeal!"

Damn straight it was the oatmeal -- my oatmeal.

OK, maybe I can't give my oatmeal all the credit. Probably a season of practice and lifting and training and conditioning and coaching and teamwork and all that stuff had a little something to do with Leo's success on the football field.

Nah.

Fuck that.

It was my oatmeal.

Cake For Breakfast

"Muffins are for people who don't have the nads

to order cake for breakfast."

-- Kitchen Confidential

Red velvet cake scraps with milk 9-28-14

"Shep claimed eating cake like that so early in the morning

was a 'whore's breakfast.'

The rest of them didn't care.

They were happy little whores who didn't worry about saving a morsel."

-- Rebecca Wells, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

We had dinner last night with my beautiful friend Kelly, who happens to be a professional pastry chef. 

Kelly operates her own very successful up-and-coming bakery in Providence, RI, but she was home in Ohio over the weekend to be in a friend's wedding, for which she also made the cake.

When professional cake designers build cakes, a lot of the cake falls victim to long, sharp, serrated knives they use to shave and shape the cakes into perfect rounds and squares with perfectly flat sides and tops.

All of the discarded, trimmed-off cake becomes cake scraps.

I worked with Kelly in a local bakery a few years ago, and when there were cake scraps, she'd send them home with me in fondant buckets for the boys. They'd eat it right out of the buckets with their fingers.

I don't see Kelly as often anymore since she moved to Rhode Island. But yesterday she showed up at the restaurant with a cooler full of scraps from the wedding cake she'd made. She brought them all the way from Providence -- about eight pounds of red velvet, lemon, and pumpkin scraps -- enough to make a whole other cake.

When we got home, we immediately dug in. Red velvet cake is a little too messy to eat with your hands, so we scooped it into cereal bowls, covered it with milk and ate it with spoons. It was sweet and squishy and turned the milk delightfully pink.

It wasn't exactly breakfast. It was 10 p.m. And we weren't exactly hungry. We'd eaten huge dinners.

But it was cake.

There's always room for cake, no matter what time it is.

This morning when I got up I found tell-tale red velvet crumbs in the sink, and the milk was all gone. So I'm pretty sure I know what the boys had for breakfast.

Anybody who's ever heard Bill Cosby's schtick about eating cake for breakfast knows it's perfectly acceptable because it's got eggs, milk and wheat. As Cos says, "That's nutrition!"

I don't let my family eat cake for breakfast every day. Sometimes I let them eat cookies and brownies. I blame my grandmother, who always had to have "a little something sweet" with her morning coffee -- donuts, sweet rolls, apple fritters.

Nutritionally speaking, perhaps cake isn't the best breakfast.

Deliciously speaking, it's about as good as it gets.

Breakfast Anytime

"Everyone runs around trying to find a place where they still serve breakfast 

because eating breakfast, even if it's 5 o'clock in the afternoon, 

is a sign that the day has just begun and good things can still happen.

Having lunch is like throwing in the towel."

-- Jonathan Goldstein, Lenny Bruce Is Dead

Polymer clay breakfast 7-25-14

"Hope makes a good breakfast. Eat plenty of it."

-- Ian Fleming, From Russia With Love

I don't usually eat breakfast, but I love breakfast food.

It's not unusual for me to eat toast and eggs for lunch and supper on any given day.

My son Sam hates it when I cook breakfast for supper. He won't touch an egg with a ten foot pole unless it's baked into a cake -- just so long as it's not a pancake.

Well, Sam was out eating pizza with friends last night, so I seized the opportunity and cooked a full-on breakfast spread for the rest of us -- French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, little crispy potatoes, strawberries and whipped cream, and a pot of good decaf.

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day and to start things off with a good one.

I agree. A good breakfast is a good thing. 

I'm just a slow starter. But I get there eventually.

Hey, better late than never.

It's all good.

Toad in the Hole

"A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of

not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead."

-- Nicholas Chamfort

Toad in the hole 1-4-14

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. 

"It's the same thing," he said.

-- A.A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh

"I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'

so I ordered French toast during the Renaissance."

-- Steven Wright

First, let's clarify.

I don't eat breakfast. The first meal of the my day usually happens around noon or later. So technically, it's still breakfast, because I'm "breaking the fast." It just takes me a while to get there.

So, that's the when.

When it comes to the what, I go in spurts. 

For a while I'll be on a cinnamon toast kick. Then it's a few weeks of walnuts and berries. Then hot cereal.

But typically it's some kind of breakfast food. Eggs are my favorite.

As for the the how, I love 'em every which way: poached, fried, scrambled, boiled, omelette-ed, frittata-ed. 

But by far, the most adorable way to enjoy an egg, has to be Toad in the Hole.

What could be happier than a piece of crispy golden toast with a round center cutout snuggled around a perfectly cooked egg? You don't need a fork. If you get the yolk just right, so that it's neither too cooked nor too runny, you can pick it up and eat it with your fingers without losing any of the yolk dripping all over the plate. But if you do lose any of the yolk, that's what the little round bit of toast is perfect for. Mopping it up.

Since I usually get the yolk just right, I like to put strawberry jam on the toasty bit as the perfect sweet note to finish the perfect breakfast.

Which brings us to ...

Ding! Ding! Ding!

The first ever "One Good Thing Daily Challenge!"

I challenge you to make Toad in the Hole for yourself, or someone you love, for whenever you enjoy breakfast (even if it's at midnight, which is a lovely time for eggs, and Toad in the Hole is a much cozier midnight snack that dry old pretzels or chips. And I think eggs pair beautifully with red wine.) 

It's super easy. Here's how:

Cut out the center of a slice of bread with a small glass or cookie cutter. Warm up a skillet (I swear by cast iron, because it makes the crispy so much crispier.) Melt some butter in the skillet (keep the heat gentle ... medium to medium low.) Then lay the toast (and the little round bit) in the melted butter. After a few minutes, so that the pan is heated fully, crack one egg into the center cutout. Salt and pepper it, and put a lid on it. When the egg white is about halfway set, flip the whole thing, salt and pepper the other side, adjust the heat so it's not too hot, and cover. Cook until the yolk is fully cooked, but still tender. (Press on the yolk ... if it's real squishy, cook it longer. If it's just this side of firm, it's ready.) Slice in half, sprinkle with fresh parsley if you like to be fancy. 

If you've made it this far, Voila! You just made Toad in the Hole!

Now isn't that a good thing?