day 35
Breakfast is a very serious business in the Black family. My dad is the King of scrambled eggs, cooking them low and slow is the key, with plenty of butter in the pan. Get that MILK away from those scrambled eggs for god's sake, now is not the time to play around. A good breakfast is never a rushed breakfast. It should feel slow, virtually like you have all day to devote to this one meal, nay, ritual, NAY religion. Okay too far. In my family, I’m always on “toast duty”, a severely undervalued position in my humble OP. If the toast is ready too early: DISASTER. Cold toast! And nobody wants that. Too late and you risk overcooking the eggs. It’s an art, okay? Usually, I must admit I do end up getting distracted with the “breakie” playlist, somewhat burning the toast, scraping off the burnt bits, then just flipping it over, hoping no one will notice if I butter them within an inch of their lives till they become a dairy product in and of themselves. As I said, an art. Now, onto bacon. Bacon deserves its own goddamn paragraph.
A good breakfast is never a rushed breakfast. It should feel slow, virtually like you have all day to devote to this one meal, nay, ritual, NAY religion.
For those of you who cook your bacon in a pan, get WITH IT. It’s all about cooking your bacon strips in the oven, under the grill. Now, this is obviously for people who like their bacon crispy and as there are no total satanists who follow my page and enjoy flabby bacon (EW), that’s everyone. Right? If you’re vegetarian look away and eat your tofu now. Make sure to lay out your bacon on top of a cooling tray on the oven dish itself, this ensures when the bacon releases its juices, they’ll all be burnt away, and it won’t just boil your bacon. Boiled bacon = flabby, stringy and fatty. No to you sir. And yes to crispy, slightly carcinogenic, fat reduced right down till its almost sugary bacon please. Trust me, the grill is the one.
We have a family speciality, tomato and onion. I’m aware, this doesn’t sound life changing, but you slow cook them in a pan together, with a little bit of balsamic, a sprinkle of brown sugar and holy mother come to Jesus, you’ll never be able to have a breakfast without it again. There’s something about the way it all combines that renders the tomatoes totally caramelised, a little sweet but kicked to the curb by the tartness of the balsamic, it’s simply deeeelicious. And you can mop up the sauce it renders with your crusty, buttery (burnt) bread. Feel honoured that I’ve actually told you this recipe, most people have to experience it in person before we deign to. Sometimes we’ll have sausages, or mushrooms but they’re not essential. What IS essential is breakfast 2.0 which follows on from the cooked breakfast – pastries. Mmmhmmm.
I think breakfast might be my most favourite meal of the day… it's like this perfect point in the day. Nothing’s really happened yet. Everyone is still a little bit sleepy, with nowhere to go, no one to be and all you’ve got is the food and the people you’re with.
Usually, if we’re organised we’ll remember to have kept the oven on and someone will throw the freshly (bought) pastries into the oven in the last 10 or so minutes of cooked breakfast part 1 of family feasting. We’ll have got a mixture of things – pain au chocolat, almond croissant, an almond/ pain au choc combo, the cinnamon swirl, maybe a quiche or a sausage roll if dad was hungry when he went in and then we’ll lay them out in a bread basket in the middle of the table, and cut them in half. We cut them in half because we’re fooling ourselves into thinking we won’t be having a WHOLE pastry after that big breakfast, but really it’s because we want to try them all and inevitably end up ploughing through 3.5 pastries each.
I think breakfast might be my most favourite meal of the day, not just for the variety – hot breakfast, croissants, cereal, pancakes, leftover pizza from the night before, leftover curry from the night before that, but because it's like this perfect point in the day. Nothing’s really happened yet. Everyone is still a little bit sleepy, with nowhere to go, no one to be and all you’ve got is the food and the people you’re with. A good breakfast should be revelled in. After all, what’s the rush?