Friday, December 08, 2006

Morning Decisions

Pancakes or Eggs? Sausage or Bacon? Home fries or Hashbrowns? Toast or Bagel? OJ or Chocolate Milk? Grits or ... no Grits? Breakfast unlike any other meal can be a very binomial process, unless you go the Lumberjack route and take them all, which I highly endorse. Hadley and I were talking about breakfast the other day and wondering how it adopted its time slot. You don't see pancakes and eggs on dinner menus and if you want to enjoy them at night someone will make sure you know that it is complete anarchy. I am for breakfast at anytime for a few reasons. For one, it is very cheap. The lack of breakfast on dinner menus may be a conspiracy theory from the top. You can only mark up the price of a "farmers daughter" special so much. The supermarket near me recently had a deal where you could buy one carton of eggs and get THREE free. Some people may say there is nothing romantic about breakfast, but that is just absurd. Nothing spells out true romance like two eggs, over easy with a side of hash browns. (Say that in the Gob Bluth voice). Secondly, while there are less options for breakfast overall... I urge someone to find a more verstile food than the egg. Sunny side, over easy, over medium, fried, poached, scrambled, basted, omelettes, fritattas, egg salad, scotch eggs, custard, eggs benedict, shirred eggs, soufffle, baked eggs, french toast*, boiled eggs, quiche and so on. It is the kid chameleon of food for cryin out loud.

So how do you all go through the process of choosing your breakfast? Is it a tough thought process? Are you a lumberjack kind of gal? Do you have a "go to" every time? Here is Machon's selection method:

1. As aforementioned, it is a binomial process for me starting with the heart of the plate; the egg family vs the pancakes/french toast/waffle family.
2. From there I go to sides. Bacon or Sausage. Depending on the place I switch it up. Good sausage can't be beat, but often it is that rubbery mini sausage from the frozen section of Cosco.
3. Home fries with cheese, always. Not a big hashbrown guy
4. Toast w/ Bagel and cream cheese on the side
5. Coffee, OJ, Choc. Milk all see an equal share of playing time

-No other meal offers such a full customization structure as breakfast. I am having pancakes for breakfast today, but more importantly, I am going to have eggs for dinner. Free Breakfast!


*Egg is a crucial part of french toast, and while it may be a reach, I am putting it on the list.

4 comments:

Mike Noone said...

I used to be a big pancake guy but I find, as I grow older, that eating a stack of pancakes now is a blow that my stomach can't bounce back from for hours. So I tend to base my breakfasts around eggs these days. And I generally go sunny side up so I can dunk my toast (which is strictly wheat at this point...I made the white to wheat conversion sometime around 1999).

Regardless, I don't go out for breakfast nearly as often as I should.

Machon said...

I too am a sunny side up guy, toast dunking is the staple in my breakfast.

Unknown said...

I love all things eggs. Dinner omelettes are a staple for me when I get gome late from work and have not had dinner. I love to go Greek style with some feta, tomatos, chopped onions and spinach. Mmmmmmmmm! I like to eat the omelette by shoveling separate pieces onto a heavily toasted wheat or rye bread (I like the toast almost black). It's a super pleasing meal but not overly filling at 10 pm at night.

Otherwise, I am obsessed with breakfast food. And let's not forget cereal, a kind of underrated food that can be a good snack here and there. Long ago my days were filled with sugery types, but today I stick to your more wholegrain style, and all of it is great. My wife recently got us on Life again and it is great great stuff.

Breakfast just rules.

Unknown said...

Cereal is a missing component in this analysis....as is fruit. Fruit can even take center stage in breakfast (grapefruit namely).

I also agree with Clarke that the days of knocking back pancakes with no reprecusions are now OVER. (aside from the occasional 4:00am Denny's run)

Normally I go with cereal or the classic "sausage, egg, and cheese" on either an everything bagel or a croissant.