Breakfast

It's been a long time since anyone tried to rethink breakfast. I assume the reason is because the meal is usually an afterthought. When most people pour cereal in a bowl in the AM, they usually aren't even awake yet. It may be commonly called the most important meal of the day, but it is rarely treated as such. I find it comical and absurd that there are two top selling books in the USA, cookbooks and diet and exercise books. One teaches you to make your favorite meals and the other teaches you how to abstain from eating them. As an aging cat they tell me I should ingest things in the morning like fresh fruit and steel cut oatmeal. Not only do I find such fare boring, but I also see it as unsatisfying. Although, for the most part I try to abide.

I'm certainly no nutritional expert but I assume the first thing that happens after ingesting a bowl of "Sugar Frosted Flakes" is our pancreas goes into some kind of sugar laden shock. I love the honesty in such products though because (forgive the pun), it's not sugar coated. These marketing people are being direct, honest, and are not trying to pass their product off as some kind of nutritional super food. At this point the only way they could be more direct is by changing their slogan to "twice the sugar, three times less fiber, and quadruple the chance of diabetes." The only people who have upped the ante on breakfast cereal past the honesty of sugar frosted flakes is the fine folks at Cookie Crisp. They don't want you wasting your time destroying your sugar buzz with healthy items like whole wheat bread or grapefruit. That's a bit like digging a hole for a mosh pit at a Neil Diamond concert; it's just not necessary.

When I was a welder, there was an old fitter in our shop that ate the same breakfast every day. He had a thermos of black coffee, a sleeve of soda crackers, a can of Vienna sausage, and a Marlboro. While it may not have been the healthiest of choices at least it was low in sugar and predictable. When I asked him how he could stand to eat the same thing every day he would just look at me over his wire rim glasses and ask, "you've never been poor have you son?" If that is the criteria for being poor the answer is NO, and I hope I never am. I do understand what makes the older generation tick, but I don't want to join them in their quest.

Let's take the wall of denial into account for just one moment my friends and ask this important question, what exactly is the difference between eating a muffin or a slice of cake for breakfast? You can stuff every kind of healthy nut or fruit known to man in a muffin, but it is still essentially cake. One is sliced into pieces, and the other is baked into individual wrappers. It's just like when Europeans call cookies biscuits, they do that because it makes them feel better about what they are shoveling into their pie hole. Don't ask me why they call sweaters "jumpers." Let's break down the ingredients in both cake and muffins, they are flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. Essentially, they are twins that were just separated at birth with a different cause but essentially the same makeup. One became a southern Republican and the other headed up the Democratic National Convention.

No matter what we chose to ingest first thing in the morning there is no better breakfast than the one we (don't) have to eat on the run, the one we can slow down for is usually more delicious and enjoyable. When eating breakfasts that are touted by nutritionist, we eat things like leafy green salads, hard boiled eggs, unsweetened yogurt, and hot tea with sweetener. You know the kind that comes in those little pink packages that causes cancer in lab rats. But what fun can possibly come from that? I may die somewhat earlier by the sword known as my own choices but at least I'll die happy. None of us are getting out of here alive my friends, so we should at least have a case of honey buns shoved in our caskets for good measure. People who run marathons and eat only "plant based" diets too will die, they will just have to fight off the inevitable longer.

I want to live on the edge and push the nutritional envelope. I want fried eggs with a crispy white edge and a gooey yolk I can dip my biscuit in. I see a lot of people putting things on their eggs like Tabasco sauce, but every time I try that my stomach sues my throat for inciting a riot. Trust me, after the age of fifty if it burns going down it's going to burn going out. I want my bacon with a crispy edge and just enough fat on the end to make me forget about my impending angioplasty procedure. I want my waffles to be dripping with just enough real maple syrup it is a crime against humanity. I want coffee so strong you have to chew it before you can swallow it, even though in less than a half hour it will cause me to clench my cheeks like a shop vice, grab the newspaper, and run for the throne room like I am headed to a five-alarm-fire. I want my Hollandaise sauce to have stiff fluffy peaks of buttery filled eggy goodness. Are you getting the picture?

Granny was famous for saying that you can afford eat like a horse as long as you work like one. I'm prepared to test line of thinking for as long as I can. The problem is that what feels like hard work and actually QUALIFIES as hard work becomes less clear as we roll into our fifties. Of course, the parameters of what is (or was) nutritionally acceptable have changed between now and the seventies. The old girl never believed in making silver dollar pancakes, she either made them the size of the plate, or she didn't make them at all. In addition, she served dark Karo syrup with them and that is public enemy number one to your poor pancreas. You'd be better off waking up every morning and pouring a full pound of sugar down your gullet before 6AM. While not all of her food ideas were healthy and sound, they sure were tasty.