Sunday Breakfast

So it's about time to post a bit on one of my habits

Sunday Breakfast

I may vary it, and mostly I do try to vary it, but here are a few themes

Bacon, Eggs, Potatoes
Sometimes and "Omelet" (which often fails), sometimes just over easy
Often with spinach
Almost always with a cheese of some sort (Leelanau Cheese Raclette is tops)

Cook up the bacon, mix of thick cut and maple cured
julienne the potatoes (handy mandoline) while the bacon is cooking - do it over a bowl of cold water, keeping the potatoes fresh
thin slice a nice sweet onion - about 1/2 onion - depends on how many we are serving
sometimes a red pepper, for color
trick - get a good apple (honeycrisp is great) and julienne it too

Now - potatoes, onions, apples (pepper if we sliced one - same shape as the potatoes) go into the hot bacon grease and fry up
turn frequently to brown well
Some sliced garlic ( or cheat with chopped ) to suit

Often steam up a batch of baby spinach at the same time

Bed of "taters & stuff" for our eggs, spinach if it was done

Trick on the eggs if you want "sunny side up", splash a shot glass of water in the pan after the eggs start to cook, cover with glass/pyrex top - this will slightly poach the top surface, only for a min or two.

If we do an omelet, it gets some variety, from cheese, to spinach, pine-nuts, maybe sliced dried tomato... 'shrooms, steamed asparagus tips

Serve with some good rye toast, and large, pulpy OJ

Have fun with it, see what you have to work with

California Dreaming ?

What were they smoking?

OK, OK, we know
But also consider that this was the home to CountryWide, IndyMac (failed mortgage bucket shops), and seems that some believed that 20% annual home appreciation wasn't a bubble.

Understanding California's Crisis | Newsweek Business | Newsweek.com:

"For a time the whole California economy seemed to revolve around real-estate speculation, with upwards of 50 percent of all new jobs coming from growth in fields like real estate, construction and mortgage brokering."

The Curious Cook - Do You Need All That Water to Boil Pasta? - NYTimes.com

Turns out you can use a lot less water
But I may still stick with the big old pot

The Curious Cook - Do You Need All That Water to Boil Pasta? - NYTimes.com:

"Why boil so much more water than pasta actually absorbs, only to pour it down the drain? Couldn’t we cook pasta just as well with much less water and energy? Another question quickly followed: if we could, what would the defenders of Italian tradition say?

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Thomas Fuchs

Related
Recipe: One-Pan Pasta With Garlic and Oil (February 25, 2009)

After some experiments, I’ve found that we can indeed make pasta in just a few cups of water and save a good deal of energy"

To cook is to be human

Cooking is a unique human activity, unique to homo sapiens sapiens ... modern man.

So, be human, fire up the burners and cook away

Why do people cook? | What's cooking? | The Economist:

"Cooking is a human universal. No society is without it. No one other than a few faddists tries to survive on raw food alone. And the consumption of a cooked meal in the evening, usually in the company of family and friends, is normal in every known society. Moreover, without cooking, the human brain (which consumes 20-25% of the body’s energy) could not keep running. Dr Wrangham thus believes that cooking and humanity are coeval."

Pass (on) the salt

Smoking, calories, trans-fats
Now salt

Since the target is processed and fast foods, I can support the idea.
It's not aimed at individual cooking and servings.

In part because of the salt content in packaged foods, I season very sparingly.
When I do, I go for the high end, Fleur de Sel and the like.

New York Health Chief’s New Foe - Salt in Packaged Foods -

“Diet is an incredibly complicated business,”