Breakfast, The Most Important Meal Of The Day, Any Day, All Day

If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then, if you are Jack, you will reason that breakfast (as in bacon and eggs) can and should be eaten at any time of the day. Jack may have been able to build an entire house, but for years bacon and eggs was the only thing he could cook. This has changed somewhat over the years, but it is still his signature dish. For our household, breakfast always involved the dynamic duo, plus a revolving supporting cast of fruit salad (in season), hash browns (maybe), pancakes (although this was Uncle Walt's specialty), waffles (seldom--especially after Tercero took apart the waffle iron), toast, juice and--indispensable item--coffee, lots of coffee.

Bacon--The Great Debate:

For Jack, bacon has always been, and always will be fried in a frying pan: lay out the rashers (great word, that--veddy British) flat in a cold pan. Turn the burner to medium. Stand in a daze with your fork or tongs raised, positioned nicely to receive the brunt of the spattering grease. (Note: a cup of coffee taken before frying the bacon will help you dodge the worst of the spatters.) Turn the rashers in the pan until they reach the desired doneness. (My spell check has just informed me that this is not a word--however, I think it should be).

If you have customers who run the gamut of wanting various degrees of doneness (see? second usage makes it a word in my book) you will have to remove some slices while still limp and leave others to crispify (hah! another non-word about to enter the lexicon!) in the pan. Remove all rashers to a paper-towel-covered plate. Guard from filchers, as the smell of frying bacon tends to bring them out of whatever woodwork they are lurking in.

Once all the bacon is fried, carefully pour the remaining fat into a can with a tight-fitting lid. (Note: The tight fitting lid is crucial!) Store this for future use, such as frying non-bacon items. One memorable use for bacon fat had been tossed around by Primero and Tercero for years--bacon mayonnaise, the ultimate (in their minds) bacon product. Finally, they decided to field test it. I am happy to report that the results were spectacularly unsatisfactory (enough said).

Primero, unlike Jack, maintains that bacon must be baked in the oven. His credentials as a chef incline me to his view, as does the elimination of the morning spatters. His advice: line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper and lay the rashers (yoicks!) on the sheet. Bake in a pre-heated medium oven (350) for twenty minutes--this will produce a medium-crisp rasher (tally ho!). For limper or crisper bacon, subtract or add five minutes.

If Primero and Jack are present, there will be a huge argument about how to cook the bacon. This will go on for hours, but the method is always determined by whose house the bacon is being cooked in. Me? I'm happy to have someone cook anything for me--I don't care how it's done.

Eggs--Apparently It Is Rocket Science:

Who knew you had to be an engineer to cook eggs? Apparently this is the case, particularly when it comes to frying them. Or so I have been told. Being a non-engineer, I have never learned to cook eggs properly. I've been told this as well, although my fried eggs taste okay to me, but what do I know? Nothing about frying eggs, it appears.

As a non-engineer, I can only provide the following instructions from observation: Take a frying pan (can be the same one you've cremated your bacon in). Put a glob (engineering term) of butter mixed with a blob (another engineering term) of bacon
fat from the can with the tight-fitting lid (again I stress the tight-fitting lid thing--you do not want to mess around with a can of bacon fat whose lid is loose). Turn the burner to low-medium. Wait for the grease mixture to sputter and pop, again splattering you and your surroundings with flying globules of hot fat. Another cup of coffee will help you dodge these as well.

Take an egg--it must be brown, free-range, dark-yolked, laid by happy chickens, and very expensive (you'd think happy chickens would produce cheaper eggs than depressed ones). Crack the shell and slide the egg carefully into the sputtering grease. If you break the yolk, curse and swear because it will not taste as good as an egg with its yolk intact. (This is what I've observed; for myself, a broken-yolked egg tastes as good as an intact one, but again, what do I--a non-engineer--know about these things?)

If you are a real engineer, you will not break the yolk. Repeat this maneuver until the desired number of eggs are sputtering in the pan. Wait three minutes exactly. THIS MUST BE PRECISELY TIMED--if you have access to an atomic clock, all well and good. If you do not, you could use a sundial for all I care. Once the three minutes are up, pour one and one-half teaspoons (again, must be exact--if you don't have an atomic teaspoon, try the little scoop that comes with the coffee--should work)of water into the pan. Slam the lid on and count to three hundred and twenty nine--say "Mississippi" in between the numbers. It must be exactly three hundred and twenty-nine--remember what happened on Lost when they didn't hit the button in the hatch on time.

Remove the lid and lever (yet another engineering term) the eggs onto plates. Serve with any bacon the filchers may have overlooked.

Scrambling eggs is my preferred method--you don't have to be an engineer, it does not spatter nearly as much, and you can get creative by throwing stuff into the eggs. The following recipe is for one dozen eggs--this will feed a normal family of six, or two of our boys: Crack one dozen eggs (unlike fried eggs, these can be white, laid by unhappy and incarcerated chickens, and do not require a bank loan to purchase) into a bowl. Add one/half cup milk (or whipping cream, if you are Tercero). Beat gently until whites, yolks and milk are incorporated evenly. Or, if you haven't had any coffee yet, and are pissed off at family members, you can beat the crap out of the eggs--either way, it doesn't really matter. After all, we don't have to worry about intact yolks--hence the word "scrambled".

Let the beaten egg mixture chill out in the bowl while you do the following: chop four green onions, medium-dice one small red bell pepper, thinly slice four medium mushrooms, grate three/quarters cup cheddar cheese.

Take a frying pan, turn element to medium. Melt a glob of butter (no bacon grease this time) in the pan. Once the butter is spattering modestly, throw in the green onions, red pepper, and mushrooms. Saute for two minutes (get out the atomic clock again--you might as well buy one--see how often you'll use it?). Once the veggies are sweated (this, I have learned, is a culinary term--I don't think it's an engineering one) pour the egg mixture into the pan. Once the egg mixture starts to solidify (I think this is an engineering term), start stirring with a wooden spoon. (Note: do not use the wooden spoon you threaten your children with--this induces needless breakfast trauma.) Throw in the grated cheese. As it melts, keep stirring the eggs--don't stir too much or too little--stir just right. As you will likely have no Goldilocks on hand to help determine this, and there is no atomic clock that regulates this, you'll have to figure this out on your own.

Once no more gross-looking liquid is oozing from the eggs, they're done. Sprinkle with some chopped fresh parsley, chives and/or basil. Scoop out onto plates and serve with any bacon that hasn't been filched (good luck with that!).

There you have it--bacon and eggs--our food portfolio breakfast. You can serve it with toast or pancakes. If you are Uncle Walt, your pancakes are made from scratch, are light and fluffy because he is an engineer and takes the time to beat the egg whites and fold them into the batter. Me? Now that the kids have left home, I've discovered the joys of pancake mix--Aunt Jemima--the kind you just add water to. If you want Uncle Walt's recipe for pancakes, you'll have to ask him.