Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. It has been for as long as I can remember. I think I can blame my maternal grandmother and my father for this phenomenon. Grammie used to make breakfast that tasted like dessert. To my Quaker Old-Fashioned Oats, she would add butter (and lots of it), white sugar, brown sugar (be still my soul), Sunmaid Raisins, and (are you sitting down?) heavy cream. The butter would dance on the surface of the cream like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. You talk about "good to the last drop"?!?!?!?!...........
At Grammie's house, breakfast came in courses. There was the fruit course. This was usually a grapefruit cut in half, then each section was skillfully cut out with one of those fancy, curved grapefruit knives to maximize the fruit output. The grapefruit was generously topped with, what else (?!?!?!), white sugar. Sometimes there were canned apricots, canned fruit cocktail, fresh strawberries or blueberries or peaches.
The second course was the cereal course. It was either oatmeal (as previously discussed), or Wheaties or Corn Flakes with whole milk. But this wasn't just ANY whole milk. My grandparents lived in a day and time where milk was delivered by the Milk Man. He put the milk in a metal box so the vitamins in the milk would not be destroyed. But you know what was so special about this milk? It had CREAM on the top!!!! (Have you ever heard the expression Top Milk? It is milk that is not homogenized, so the cream rises to the top...hence the expression "Top Milk". When they homogenize milk, that fat is held in suspension and is uniform throughout the product). Cream on cereal....it was a youthful extravagance!
The third and final course was the egg course. Two eggs, over easy, fried in bacon grease, with two pieces of bacon and two pieces of Pepperidge Farm toast (the perfectly square kind) with butter.
Does anyone need a nap after that description? Breakfast was an EVENT, second only to Sunday Breakfast at my dads. My dad was rarely in the kitchen during the week, but on the weekends....you'd better step aside. My dad didn't go to church on Sundays, and I think Sunday Breakfast was his own type of worship. He would make these scrambled eggs with evaporated milk that were about as light as I have ever tasted. Then he would make his gargantuan mountain of hash browned potatoes with a whole package of paprika. Literally, they would make your nose run. While the children were screaming, my dad would say, "Huh huh huh....hurts so good".....(we were young to label that). He would make 2 pounds of bacon and toast a whole loaf of honey wheat bread and use 2 sticks of butter to butter it. A gallon of orange juice rounded out the meal.
As you can see, I come from a family of breakfast makers on both sides. I am proud to carry on the tradition. Yes, I've been to Culinary School, but I had been "wowing" people way before that. When people come to my house for breakfast, they are in store for a meal that they won't soon forget. And thanks to the gifts of modern technology, I'd like to share my breakfasts with you. I'll post ideas, recipes, pictures and menus. If I find a great breakfast spot, I will mention it as well. I'd also like you to be a participant. If you have questions or comments or had a great breakfast yourself that you would like to share, let me know. So loosen your belt and pick up your fork. It's time for Breakfasts at Kimberly's.
