At Blue Bottle in San Francisco, this dish is called Popeyes. Photograph by Alaina Browne.
An egg fried in the center of a piece of bread—a simple preparation that elevates the union of my two favorite breakfast food groups, eggs and toast, to a whole new level. I've seen this delicious combination referred to as: Popeye, egg in a basket, toad in the hole, and the more literal eggs-in-toast. Wikipedia lists even more that I haven't encountered: Kibbee Egg, hen in a nest, moon egg, cowboy egg, and one-eyed jack. What do you call an egg fried in a hole of a slice of bread?
Happy National Doughnut Day! In honor of the big day, the dueling doughnut heavyweights are giving away morning treats. At Dunkin’ Donuts, any drink purchase scores a bonus doughnut. Krispy Kreme is doing a straight giveaway—one freebie per customer.
Now that blueberries and strawberries are in season or coming into season across the U.S., photos like this one (from the Serious Eats Flickr Photo Pool) nudge me into incorporating them into my breakfast. I've been doing the Fage thing—the kind with the little side "handle" filled with preserves, but nothing beats fresh fruit. I think it's time to switch to oatmeal spiked with fresh berries, but I could certainly use other tips. What strawberry/blueberry/berry breakfasts have you been doing lately?
Everyone has "the best" approach to poaching an egg, just like every region has the best barbecue sauce and every Jewish mother has the best matzoh ball soup recipe. There's a lot of conflicting information out there. Is a splash of vinegar necessary? Should you crack the eggs in a separate cup first?
The Kitchn seems to have found the truth to perfectly runny yolks and firm whites. The method comes from Delia Smith's Complete How to Cook. The UK food personality recommends pouring hot water from a kettle into a large, shallow pan and heating it until little bubbles start to form. Then break the eggs one by one into the water and let them barely simmer for exactly one minute. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the eggs to sit in the hot water for another ten minutes. Do you agree?
There are neighborhood cafés, and then there are neighborhood classics. The kind of local favorites where the staff gets to know your name, and you theirs. Where even though lines snake out the door, every regular considers the place his own unique find. And where the food is both honest and memorable, worth going back to—and not just because it’s around the corner.
These institutions often take years to evolve. But Mike and Patty’s, opened eight months ago on a quiet corner in Boston’s Bay Village neighborhood, seems pretty close already. Its storefront may be tiny—an open kitchen behind the counter, one high table for a friendly six, and hardly enough room to turn around. What Mike and Patty’s lacks in size, however, it makes up for in quality, good cheer, and the remarkable creativity of its café menu.
Mike and Patty’s serves only breakfast and sandwiches, closing by 3pm each day; but a short stroll from downtown, it does a roaring weekday lunch trade. So many suits stop by for pressed Cubans, turkey Reubens, and Fried Green Tomato BLTs that, Mike concedes, their tiny shop gets a bit overwhelmed. But early on a Saturday morning, there was room to sit by the window, peruse the chalkboard menus, and watch the two title characters (and their assistant Heather) go to work.
In the last 12 days, we've had Star Trek and Doctor Who food-related items materialize on Serious Eats. Might as well go for a nerd trifecta and get Star Wars in the mix. Good morning, and may the force be with you—from your friends at Serious Eats, the nerdiest food blog in the universe. [via Unique Daily]
This cute commercial out of Brazil for Do Bem boxed fruit drinks imagines a sampler made from various breakfast items assembled on a cafeteria tray. Video, after the jump.
This dispatch comes to us from serious eater Melinda McCamant, who lives in Portland, Oregon. She pointed out to us that English muffins are neither English nor muffins. An avid home baker with a taste for brioche and a budget for Wonder Bread, she's always interested in combining flour, yeast, and water into tasty new forms. Take it away, Melinda! —Erin
I confess—right around the time I reached thirty-something I developed a fondness for baking. I get an absurd pride from neglecting the store-bought in favor of the homemade. But every time I make something from scratch, I feel obligated to never buy it premade again.
This has considerably crimped the amount of breakfast sandwiches I can consume. On a recent Sunday morning when I got out of bed a full hour before my boyfriend to make English muffins, I began to wonder if it was worth it. Are my English muffins really worth the flour handprints on the back of my pajamas? Was I even saving money?
As I turned on the griddle to start my first batch I decided to perform an experiment: buy English muffins and compare them to my own. So, in fairness, I took some homemade English muffins from that Sunday batch and put them in the freezer until I thought they were at least as old as four kinds from the supermarket shelf: the generic kind at Fred Meyer (a subsidiary of The Kroger Co.), Wolferman's, Trader Joe's, and the classic Thomas'.
But when Dunkin’ Donuts starts promoting a new breakfast pastry, it’s probably a safer bet. For a limited time, many DDs are offering icing-topped Cinnamon Twists ($1.39), which can be served toasted. It's slightly funny timing with spring heating up (and iced coffee weather creeping in) but cinnamon never really goes out of season.
About six inches long, the Cinnamon Twist looks like four little cinnamon rolls melded together, sparingly drizzled with sweet icing. If you like any of DD’s twisted pastries, you’ll be a fan—slightly denser doughnut dough, with a few streaks of cinnamon, and not enough icing to get in the way.
Jason Lam of Me So Hungry makes a Egg McMuffin-esque breakfast sandwich out of a plump Chinese steamed bun, slice of ham, melted cheese, and a fried egg. Note to self: I need to make more sandwiches out of bao.
I don't think the interweb at large is ever going to get tired of looking back at breakfast cereals of the past. Once you've seen a gallery or two of vintage cereal boxes, you've pretty much seen them all. We're certainly guilty of such retrogazing, and Yes But No But Yes is just the latest blog to pour a big bowl of nostalgia.
But what I'm doing so awkwardly here at this hazy early morning hour is using their post as a jumping off point to ask dbcurrie a question that's been bugging me—and probably a few serious eaters as well: Did you ever figure out what the heck cereal it was that you asked about here?
Every time I've eaten a form of pan fried egg-coated bread, it's been sweetened—that is, your basic French toast. It never occurred to me that a unsweetened version could be just as tasty until I read about Blake Royer's discovery of eggy bread on The Paupered Chef. Although his British friend manning the stove acted as though eggy bread were the most natural thing in the world, Royer seemed to be just as unaware of the simple savory French toast as I was. We're not the only ones, are we?
In an era of downsizing rather than super-sizing, Burger King has spun much of its menu into miniature form—Burger Shots, Cini-Minis, and now the limited-time “Breakfast Shots.” These tiny egg sandwiches come in packs of two ($1.49) or six ($4.39), topped with your choice of bacon, ham, or sausage, and slathered in a smoky cheese sauce.
Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting much of these slider-sized morsels. Dividing one breakfast sandwich into many can be a sly way of cutting back the eggy, cheesy surface area, passing off hunks of bread with minimal goodies as bite-sized sandwiches. But if anything, BK’s Breakfast Shots had the opposite problem—too little bread to contain everything else going on.
Bite-sized sandwiches should be bite-able. These were not. The egg patty stretched across the two-pack, and wouldn’t tear when I tried to gently pull the halves apart. I ended up awkwardly biting through the egg, nearly gutting the sandwich in the process. (Yes, I could have asked for a knife. But fast food shouldn’t require cutlery.)
This might be a nice weekend project. If you start today, you could have fresh, homemade bagels for breakfast tomorrow. The blog Salty, Savory, Sweet finds that malted barley flour seems to work well as a substitute for the malt syrup called for in many bagel recipes. If you've ever made your own bagels, you know that even a not-top-notch batch boiled and baked at home is better than most subpar versions you get in stores these days.
Sara of I'm a Food Blog has been on a muffin kick lately. They're great to make ahead, freeze, and have on hand. Adapted from a recipe by Dorie Greenspan, these lemon poppy seed muffins are a bright start to your day. Take the time to enjoy them with a cup of tea at home or at work.
In her latest post, French blogger Fanny of the sweets and pastry-centric blog foodbeam explains how to make perfect croissants accompanied by photographs that tortuously accentuate every golden, buttery layer.
Although I've never thought of seriously making my own croissants considering that the most advanced thing I can bake is a cupcake, Fanny's instructions almost make me believe I have the power to do so. "Making croissant can seem pretty daunting at first," she gently begins, "but once you’ll really pay attention to the different steps, you’ll realise it’s as easy as making pâte feuilletée." Oh yes, it's as easy as that...wait, I've never made pâte feuilletée before. (Of course, Fanny has clearly illustrated instructions for making puff pastry.)
But now I have a goal: to one day make croissants from scratch. I will picture Fanny's croissants in mind every step of the way.
Starting Tuesday, March 3, Starbucks' take on the value meal: For $3.95, you can get a tall latte and oatmeal, the latte with a slice of reduced-fat cinnamon swirl coffee cake, or drip coffee with a breakfast sandwich. And make way for two new breakfast sandwiches: bacon with egg and Gouda, and ham with egg and cheddar.
Posted by Lucy Baker, February 27, 2009 at 3:15 PM
"I realized that they really weren't kidding about the fiber."
Growing up, I was one of those lucky kids who got to have any breakfast cereal they wanted: Fruit Loops, Cocoa Krispies, Apple Jacks. Nothing was off-limits. So you'd think that, after years of consuming massive amounts of sugar first thing in the morning, I'd still have a serious AM sweet tooth.
But in fact, just the opposite happened—these days I crave plain Cheerios, Weetabix, and, more than anything, Fiber One.
Recently, Betty Crocker, which is owned by parent company General Mills, debuted a new line of Fiber One products including toaster pastries, granola bars, shredded wheat, and baking mixes for pancakes and muffins. It’s all part of their ingenious “Cardboard, no. Delicious, yes.” campaign. I decided to test out the Apple Cinnamon Premium Muffin Mix ($3.99). According to the box, each serving is packed with 20 percent of my daily fiber needs and had only 160 calories and 6 grams of fat. It sounded like a pretty good breakfast to me.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 27, 2009 at 7:30 AM
100 - [10L - 7F + C(k - C) + T(m - T)]/(S - E)
A lot of heavy lifting for a pile of butter sponges and syrup pools, but that's what a "maths teacher" in the UK says is the key to pancake greatness.
L = number of lumps in the batter
C = consistency
F = flipping score
k = ideal consistency
T = temperature of the pan
m = ideal temperature of pan
S = length of time the batter stands before cooking
E = time the cooked pancake sits before being eaten
A commenter on Buzz Feed, though, discovered that setting "S" to ten years would yield near-perfect results. So maybe just go back to following the back of the Bisquick box. [via kottke]
Money management blog The Simple Dollar shows you how easy it is to make bulk breakfast burritos filled with beans, eggs, and salsa that are cheap and fairly healthy. In about an hour you can make 32 burritos for $0.72 each. Freeze them until needed, at which point you can easily microwave them back to life. [via Lifehacker]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 11, 2009 at 8:30 AM
Do anthropomorphic bowls of oatmeal give you great joy or nightmares? J. Anzalone of the blog Paintbox shares her smiling oatmeal art. If they start talking, then we should probably have a separate conversation. [via BoingBoing]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 6, 2009 at 8:00 AM
When they are not slaying dragons or saving distressed maidens, superheros keep busy working on cereal endorsements. Batman, Spiderman, and the Hulk have all been tied to sugar-coated flakes or O's. Many of them have even forayed into Pop-Tarts. Gotta pay the cape and skin-tight suit dry cleaning bills somehow.
If you want to move beyond breakfast and eat like you have unprecedented powers all the time, check out the Super Hero Food Index, which includes the expected fruit snacks, popsicles, and cheese crackers. [via Coldmud]
Posted by Carey Jones, February 5, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Every city has its local institutions—and small New England cities tend to be particularly devoted to their own. But hometown pride only partly explains the wild popularity of The Friendly Toast in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
There’s the décor: the bright red walls of this kitsched-out eatery are a veritable gallery of mid-century Americana, with plastic sculptures of Dick and Jane perched over the open kitchen, “Enjoy Life With Miller!” signs, and KFC-brand shades on the hanging lights. There’s the late-night schedule: open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday through Thursday, but 24 hours all weekend, never shutting its doors from Friday morning through Sunday night.
And then there’s the food. The Friendly Toast serves the most eclectic array of oddball diner fare I’ve ever seen (north of Shopsin’s). In true eatery style, the menu leans heavily towards breakfast and lunch offerings—thick pancakes and waffles, loaded-up omelets, unlikely egg scrambles, nine-ounce burgers, and house-made frappes (which non-New Englanders will, to the dismay of many locals, call milkshakes). And the dishes are as familiar, yet bizarre, as the knickknacks on the walls.
You asked, we ate. I grabbed one of Dunkin' Donuts' new Waffle Breakfast Sandwiches and then a McDonald's McGriddle joint—DD's obvious inspiration—for comparison.
First impression while placing both unwrapped sandwiches side by side: Looks like we're getting a bigger sandwich from Dunkin', I thought. But then we unwrapped them, after the jump.
Last weekend, I accidentally found this charming old cafe just beside the hideously renovated Western Market in Hong Kong's Sheung Wan district.... I bet such an old place should have a regular crowd of customers, where everybody knows each other's names, chit chats about the golden olden days of Hong Kong, the Brits, the economic crisis, their biggest mah jong win, the flat-chested girls/skinny boys they went after/who went after them.
Sliced beef noodles topped with fried egg (pictured) are a standout, says Mochachocolata-Rita.
Hoi On Cafe
17 Connaught Road West, Hong Kong (at Tung Loi Lane; map)
Posted by Erin Zimmer, January 20, 2009 at 7:30 AM
If you see a breakfast menu where the omelets are made of seagulls' eggs, beware. As the blog Umami Mart points out, seagulls' eggs are not really eggs at all, but a Japanese snack called "kamome no tamago." It's cake filled with bean paste and surrounded by white chocolate. Similar to a real egg, there are textural contrasts (between the coating, cake, and bean), and they're high in protein (thanks to the bean). But they probably don't taste as good with hash browns.
First, there were bacon bowls. Now Kristen of Dine and Dish brings us bacon and egg cups. Unlike other versions I've seen floating around, Kristen uses the inside of a muffin tin and bakes the bacon and egg together all at once. No bacon-weaving skills needed. Simple, efficient, and a nifty way to present breakfast to a crowd.
Posted by Robyn Lee, December 17, 2008 at 12:30 PM
If your frozen waffles could talk, you'd hear a lot of screaming. So it's a good thing they live out their pain in silence! This video follows a pair of frozen waffles and their alternating moments of fleeting pain and pleasure as they go from freezer to plate. Watch the video after the jump.
For breakfast this morning I boiled a couple eggs. And, don't you know it, every time I peel a hard-boiled egg, I think of this scene from Angel Heart. I'm usually a little faster than Robert DeNiro and can often manage to remove the shell in one piece, but his technique is solid—crack it all over; roll it around on the plate, applying moderate pressure to further crack the shell; then peel. The egg scene, after the jump. (NSFW due to mild language.)
Posted by Carey Jones, December 8, 2008 at 7:45 AM
Boston breakfasters have it good. We've already noted how Joanne Chang's Flour Bakery churns out killer baked goods, like the incomparably gooey Sticky Sticky Buns. And across town is Clear Flour Bread, a tiny Brookline bakery famous for classic Italian breads and French pastries—and the mouthwatering oven fumes wafting down the block.
Two Boston bakeries, two similar names: They invite comparison! Each one has a loyal following, and the long weekend lines to prove it. It’s hard to appoint either of these the best bakery in town. But each one has specialties that can’t be beat.
During tough economic times, restaurants search for quick fixes to make up for lost revenue. Some options: extending hours, skimping on portions, and adding breakfast service.
As a fervent breakfast burrito lover, I was curious if Chipotle had considered the morning menu addition. Currently, the national chain doesn't open stores until 11 a.m., but maybe they could set the alarm clocks earlier and throw some eggs on the griddle? When asked, Chiptole's public relations director Chris Arnold, had this to say:
That is certainly something people have suggested to us, and something we have thought about ourselves. But it isn't as simple as it might look. Doing breakfast impacts our labor model (which has us running two full-time shifts a day) and could require different kitchen equipment—like griddles instead of grills. I wouldn't look for changes like that any time soon. But I do think we could do a great breakfast if we ever decided to.
The Japanese have done it again with the Motoman robot, a pancake-flipping wonder of circuits and electricity. This awesome machine recently debuted at a three-day exhibition of robots in Osaka.
If you could have a robot, what would you want it to cook for you? [via Coldmud]
Posted by Carey Jones, November 24, 2008 at 7:30 AM
Remember these guys?
Of course you do. There may well be a box stuffed in the back of your freezer—even if it’s been there since 1994. Back in my freezer-breakfast days, Eggo made one thing: waffles. And they looked just like this. (Except for the Guitar Hero ad.)
But these days, the supermarket Eggo section is stocked with unfamiliar specimens. Eggo Toaster Cinnamon Rolls? French Toaster Sticks? Bake Shop Swirlz? Mini Muffin Tops?
The waffles are just one box among many. As much as Eggo evolves, though, some things never change: Everything is compact and toaster-ready, and everything comes in a cheery yellow box.
So how do these newfangled Eggos stack up?
Cinnamon Roll Minis
Four to a waffle-sized sheet, these “cinnamon rolls” were puffy bits of yellow Eggo dough, stamped into a spiral, with tiny dabs of cinnamon filling and icing inside. The distinctive Eggo taste completely overwhelmed these little guys. The unbalanced ratio of filling-to-dough meant that, unless you really sought out the filling, you’d think you were just eating an awkwardly shaped classic Eggo.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 21, 2008 at 7:30 AM
For the times you want quick, easy scrambled eggs, minus the eggs: here's a recipe for tofu "scram." Chris Brunn of Gapers Block combines tahini, sesame seeds, soy sauce, lemon, and ripped-up pieces of tofu. He recommends tofu with a firm, solid texture.
If I could choose to live anywhere in Portland, it would be right near Pine State Biscuits. A staff of friendly twenty-somethings run the kitchen stations, cranking out orders of their famous biscuits slathered in sausage or mushroom gravy, with fried chicken, eggs cooked to order, and various seasonal sides—including hash browns, grits, and braised greens. You can expect to wait on a weekend morning—ours, including the line and food preparation, was about a half hour. This is not a brunch spot to linger at, so tables turn over frequently.
Posted by Carey Jones, November 19, 2008 at 8:30 AM
There are several schools of thought when it comes to breakfast pastries. There are the French loyalists, who rely on a time-honored repertoire of croissants, brioche, and pain au chocolat. Then there’s the anything-goes sweet tooth contingent—lovers of sticky buns and coffee cake, donuts and muffins, not bound by patisserie tradition but looking for a breakfast that’s gooey and satisfying.
Can these two camps ever reach across the aisle? Yes, they can—in the morning bun.
In my mind, the morning bun is the perfect synthesis of the classic croissant and the irresistible sticky bun. Call it a croissant in cinnamon roll clothing. It’s made of a buttery croissant dough, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar (and often walnuts or pecans), then rolled into spirals. Each one is baked in a muffin tin, and when the morning buns rise, they spill up and out of their little slots. Kept in close quarters, the bottom stays a bit doughy, like a sticky bun interior, while the top lifts into an appealingly flaky, cinnamon-speckled dome.
Posted by Carey Jones, November 17, 2008 at 7:30 AM
The English breakfast is a massive undertaking. While its exact composition varies across the British Isles, ordering a full fry-up will get usually you bacon, eggs, sausages, potatoes, baked beans, mushrooms, tomato, and toast, at a minimum. And on this piled-high plate sits the brekker’s most notorious member—thick slices of black pudding. Translation? Blood sausage. Good morning, indeed.
I’d lived in London for several months before I first tasted black pudding. The idea of blood sausage had never appealed to me, and since I cooked for myself in my little flat kitchen, I hadn’t yet confronted the full-on breakfast. Until I visited an Irish friend, that is. He opened his refrigerator one morning to find it nearly empty. “All I have are eggs and things. Is that all right?”
To my American mind, eggs followed by “and things” means: bacon. Maybe toast. But ten minutes later, I was handed a plate of eggs, sausage, and thick, dark rounds of black pudding. Ah, yes. Blood for breakfast. I’d known about black pudding, sure—known that traditional restaurants or old Scottish grandmums might try to sneak it on my plate. But a 20-something city-living bachelor kept it on hand? Maybe this stuff was more than just a novelty.
So as a polite guest, I gingerly bit into a piece. And to my great surprise, it was delicious. Meaty, sweetly spicy, studded with barley and oats. It wasn’t nearly as strong or gamey as I thought—it didn’t taste tangy or, well, bloody at all. Hearty and warm, it settled nicely in my stomach, like a good breakfast should.
As your new Serious Eats breakfast correspondent, ready to take you on a journey of the pre-noon delicious, I feel the need to first defend my favorite meal of the day. As meals go, breakfast is a polarizing one. In this country, at least, no one denies the need for lunch or dinner. But for many otherwise serious eaters, breakfast is overlooked or under-enjoyed—a granola bar gobbled in the pantry, a drive-through cup of coffee, or nothing at all.
There’s a litany of typical breakfast excuses: "I’m not hungry in the morning." “I don’t have time for a full meal." "My stomach complains if I eat before noon." Some people just aren’t breakfast people. (Which is funny, when you think about it. Few claim not to be “dinner people.”) But in the opposite camp are the devoted breakfastophiles—those who couldn’t imagine starting the day without a hearty fill-up.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, October 31, 2008 at 7:30 AM
Consider this: everything we eat today must be pumpkin-shaped (that includes the stem), starting with breakfast. Rachel of My Sisters Cucina made these pumpkin-shaped pancakes with Bisquick, then added orange and green food coloring for a realistic effect.
Fewer Japanese people can get skinny these days. With bananas the hot new diet trend, it's hard to keep them stocked. Over the last year, the Japanese division of Dole has increased shipments by 25-percent, but still fails to keep up.
The Banana Diet regimen includes: a raw banana and glass of room-temperature water for breakfast, then basically anything thereafter, except sweets and limited alcohol.
Once Asian celebrities started endorsing the banana diet, the yellow fruit got hot. If you're eating a banana right now, you're probably not in Japan.
Breakfast means different things to different people, as Reader's Digestpoints out.
For sumo wrestlers, it's a bulk-up food called chanko-nabe (chunky stew of vegetables, noodles, and meat or seafood). In rural Cambodia, school children digest morning lessons with a bowl of rice and split peas. The rest of us non-sumo wrestlers, non-Cambodians often hit up cereal (part of a $9 billion business) or a fruit smoothie.
Do you have a favorite breakfast specific to your lifestyle or region?
I am not vegan, but would totally eat these. Over at the blog Method, they used soy butter and soy milk for the crepes, and mixed berries, apple cider, and honey for the pink drizzle. Soy products in a classically French recipe? My inner mad scientist is fascinated to see this actually worked.
In the October issue of Saveur —in between the exploration of muesli, Francine Prose’s essay on eggs, and the other features woven together as part of the magazine’s special breakfast issue—is a look at a now rare but once ubiquitous creature: the morning eye-opener.
Many people may consider Bloody Marys and mimosas de rigeur for weekend brunches, but the world of breakfast cocktails is much bigger than most may think. As David Wondrich points out, many nineteenth-century cocktails were designed to be consumed well before the sun was over the yardarm, and were utilized to help the drinker brace up during the morning after a long night.
Yesterday, Starbucks launched a new "breakfast sandwich" called the "piadini," inspired by the Italian flatbread-like "piandina" usually filled with meat and/or cheese and eaten at lunch or snack time. Starbucks' piadina introduction was basically screaming for a comparison, and once we got real Italians involved, the taste test results weren't pretty.
Initial reaction from Giancarlo Quadalti and Maurizio DeRosa: skepticism.
A call up to chef Giancarlo Quadalti of New York's Teodora, Celeste, Bianca, and Fiore—he is from Ravenna, Italy, the home of the piadina—inspired a serious chuckle on the other line. He was equal parts intrigued and frightened. Starbucks is really attempting what sweet, hunched-over Italian women make at streetside kiosks?
When we brought him and his good friend, Italian wine expert Maurizio DeRosa, the two available flavors (portobello mushroom with ricotta, and sausage with cheddar), they thought the Starbucks sticker and tightly-wrapped package was cute, but the contents, not so much. At first, Quadalti shook his head. "Uh-uh. I'm not trying that." He left the room for a bit to griddle his own piadina, a staple appetizer at Teodora, served with choice of cured meats, broccoli rabe, or stracchino cheese. Returning, Quadalti lifted up the Starbucks version, bending it like silly putty. "It should not do that."
Posted by Caitlin Kenney, September 21, 2008 at 11:00 AM
This plush toast keychain is not only adorable, it's also practical. Attaching it to your keys, means you'll never leave home without breakfast. Doll maker ~aiwa-9 created this and some other plush foods. Check out Deviant Art for a great tutorial on how to make your own.
Posted by Carey Jones, September 19, 2008 at 10:00 AM
While I have nothing against a warm doughnut or pain au chocolat, my heart has always belonged to the sticky bun. In my mind, it’s everything a breakfast pastry should be—gooey, cinnamony, and with so many layers to unearth, endlessly entertaining. (I started baking at age six with the sole intention of making my own super-gooey cinnamon rolls. Old habits die hard.)
When I saw Joanne Changout-bake Bobby Flay on the Food Network’s Throwdown, I knew I had to hit up her Flour Bakery in Boston the first chance I got. Flay’s needlessly experimental orange-almond rolls couldn’t hold a candle to Joanna’s “Sticky Sticky Buns,” doused in a brown sugar-honey “Goo.”
Posted by Erin Zimmer, September 19, 2008 at 7:30 AM
Dunkin' breakfast sandwiches all lined up, waiting for you to eat them. Don't.
Usually I am a Dunkin' cheerleader. I like the big iced coffees. I like the cotton candy pink icing on the donuts, even if I don't order them. I like the reliable service for working Americans everywhere. Overall, I like that America Runs on Dunkin'. But America should not run on their Egg White Flatbread breakfast sandwiches. They should run away.
There are two flavors, both on flatbread: Veggie (with peppers, onions, mushrooms, reduced fat cheddar) and Turkey Sausage (with spinach and mozzarella). Maybe I'm just English muffin nostalgic, but the flatbread was the first mistake. It's sweet. And gross. Inside, the egg white patties have little specks of unidentifiable "bits." They look like confetti, whether veggies or sausage. But there's no party here.
My mom used to feed me McMuffins before big tests growing up, so I've always considered breakfast sandwiches to have special powers. These: powerless. They may be less than 300 calories each, but still no power. A sad moment for breakfast sandwiches everywhere.
Sometimes two slices of toast on a plate can look pretty dull and unappetizing, but imagine if you could jazz up this boring breakfast staple with a cool picture or a sweet note to your significant other—that would be pretty neat, right?
The Scan Toaster makes that possible. The toaster, by designer Sung Bae Chang, uses hot wires that rotate within a 30 degree radius to burn the image or text of your choice onto your toast. Since this thing can print literally anything, the possibilities are endless.
The toaster is still in the design phase (it was a finalist in the 2008 Electrolux Design Lab competition), but if it ever makes it to a store near me, I'm definitely snapping one up. [via Gizmodo]
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 9, 2008 at 8:00 AM
I want these doughnuts.
Now.
I can already imagine what they taste like—and can almost feel the welcome grittiness of the cinnamon-sugar coating I'd end up getting all over my fingers and desk here at work.
Stephan of This Engineer Can Bakemade these buttermilk beauties and, true to his vocation, gives plenty of tips on oils and oil smoke points to help you engineer a batch. Luckily "you can have them in the oil in 15 minutes without much trouble," he says.
If only we had a deep-fryer in the office or even, as Stephan recommends, a good pot with a candy thermometer. [via Photograzing]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, September 4, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Earlier this year, Starbucks pitched a new game plan: Focus more on coffee, less on noncoffee things. Get back in touch with their roots. But the breakfast sandwiches are still available (now in less-fragrant form), bottled juices still get stocked in the fridge, and yesterday, a "healthier" breakfast line-up with fewer calories and more protein settled in behind the glass counter. Here's our take on the new noncoffee products.
Power Protein Plate, $4.95
330 calories with peanut butter, 260 without (about one-third of your daily protein intake)
The plastic tray includes a hard-boiled egg, some apple slices, a tiny sprig of grapes, two squares of white cheddar, a mini wheat bagel, and a squeezable ketchuplike packet of peanut butter. If you fetish over mini things that get stuffed into a hot-dog-size home, this is all you. While the hard-boiled egg was bland—and served cold, instead of the warm, like Mama fed you—it's not green! So that's always good.
Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal, $2.45
140 calories for just oatmeal; 100 calories for nut medley; 100 calories for dried fruit; 50 calories for brown sugar
"Perfect" is a strong word. As a religious oatmeal eater, I rarely come across an imperfect bowl, but for perfect, the Quaker man himself would have to serve it to me. The small cup comes with two options of 100-calorie packets: mixed nuts (almonds, walnuts, and pecans) or dried fruit, and a 50-calorie pack of brown sugar. I appreciate the purist approach to oatmeal and hands-on toppings. (No weird caramel syrups or Dinosaur eggs inside.) But north of $2 seems like too much.
We've all been there. Groggy-eyed, you spot the egg carton in the fridge, grab for it, and, the minute you pick it up, realize by its lightness that there's only one lonely egg left. Olga poached her single egg and made a great-looking sweet-potato-and-broccoli hash to supplement it. What would you do make for breakfast with a single egg?
I've gotta be honest with you: I don't think I'd ever heard of eggs on yogurt before. But why not? I love eggs. I like* yogurt. Why not try putting them together? To me, it's an unlikely combo that sounds just crazy enough to work.
Serious Eats intern Emily Koh shot this photo and uploaded it to Photograzing recently. As she says, "You can't go wrong with poached eggs, and combining it with the yogurt and the slight spiciness from the chili oil = genius combo."
Thanks for making me ultra hungry during my morning web-surfing, EKoh. :-P
* I won't kid you: I like yogurt but eat it mostly as part of a healthy breakfast.
If you can't swim like Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, what makes you think you can eat like him? Jon Henley of The Guardianattempts to eat Michael Phelps' breakfast and lunch on video and inevitably fails. It's no wonder considering what he tries to eat:
A small (rather than gargantuan) portion of porridge; half a doorstep-sized sandwich made of white bread and butter and containing a fried egg, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise (Phelps hoovers up three); half a five-egg omelette; one slice of French toast (out of three); and two choc-chip pancakes (out of three). Plus two cups of coffee.
Henley does put in a good effort—until he gets that, "I'm going to throw up," look on his face.
How 'bout that Michael Phelps last night? Wondering what he eats to fuel the kind of performance we've been witnessing? Well, on Monday night NBC's Bob Costas reported a tidbit of jaw-dropping info: Michael Phelps recommended calorie intake is 8,000 to 10,000 calories.
Costas read Phelps' typical breakfast order from Pete's Grille in Baltimore, Maryland, as is recounted in Phelps' autobiography Beneath the Surface:
Start with three sandwiches of fried eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions, and mayonnaise; add one omelet, a bowl of grits, and three slices of French toast with powdered sugar; then wash down with three chocolate chip pancakes.
The kicker: This was his typical meal as a teenager. Now he trains in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where local restaurant owners are giddy with excitement describing how good he has been for business. We found a video where they do just that. Watch it, after the jump.
Clockwise from top left: Pan Electric's Toastrite; British Diamix's No Type 01; Toast-O-Lator Model C, Glass-Sides; and Daaledrop's KMD 21191.
A truly great breakfast takes a spark of inspiration—and what better place to find that inspiration than an online toaster museum, which features porcelain toasters, copper toasters, and one toaster that sold on e-Bay for over $5,000? In case the 189 toasters on the web museum aren't enough, the site also provides links to toaster art and toaster films.
Another change at Starbucks in light of recent underperformance? The reheated breakfast sandwiches—yeah, they're making them smell less. While the McMuffin lookalikes received poor marks on taste from us, customers still found them perfectly appetizing. It was the smell that irked them.
Meaty, eggy aromas were infiltrating the undertones of Kona Blend and Caffè Verona in the air. "While relatively popular, the smell interfered with the coffee aroma, and therefore the store experience," according to Ad Age. The article noted that products have been reformulated to eliminate this "smell" problem.
Back in January, CEO Howard Schultz said the breakfast sandwiches were on the way out, but we swear we've spotted them behind glass counters at multiple branches. A trip to a nearby Starbucks this morning confirmed our suspicions: plenty of sandwiches and a confused barista who hadn't heard of impending smell-related tweaks.
Who knows how the "last breakfast" topic came up with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but his response was pretty delicious:
"I always said if I had one breakfast to eat before I die, it would be Wonder Bread toasted, with Skippy Super Chunky melted on it, slices of overripe banana and fresh crisp bacon."
Not a bad idea, Mike, and pretty down-to-earth of you, considering you're worth about thirty billion dollars.
What would mine be? Perfect pancakes, crispy at the edges and tender inside, served with real maple syrup and sweet butter; six slices of Allan Benton's superlative bacon; two super-fresh eggs softly scrambled on a separate plate—I don't want the syrup touching my eggs—all washed down with a glass of really cold milk and a glass of equally cold fresh orange juice.
What about you, serious eaters? Last breakfast fantasies?
Morning, serious eaters. It's Friday, so we say treat yourself to a fried dough tire. Pastry chef and blogger Shuna Fish Lydon of the blog Eggbeaterrecently did at San Francisco's Dynamo Doughnuts, which just opened Tuesday. Lydon is a lover of all walks of doughnut life—"even if they were the wallflower kind or still wore high-waters in college."
Have you ever met fried dough you didn't like? Dynamo Doughnuts: 2760 24th Street, San Francisco CA 94110 (map); 415-920-1978
Brunch haters are few and far between, but McDonald's is one of them. That 11 a.m. deadline for breakfast foods is so strict, leaving absolutely no wiggle room between Egg McMuffin and Big Mac service. Is it so wrong to crave an egg sandwich at lunchtime and double meat patty at 9 a.m.? Or both at once? Don't they stock everything in the back anyway?
Two self-proclaimed "Internet Celebrities" Dallas Penn and Rafi Kam hopped into a fast food spaceship to another cosmos where McDonald's brunch sandwiches exist. Arriving at 10:55 a.m. just before the changing of the guard, they ordered breakfast then hopped back into line at 11:01 a.m.
The result: Canadian bacon, the "round eggy thing," fries, Premium Chicken Select Strips, and honey mustard, all inside the McGriddle bread. Yes, they went there. Because they call the shots, "not the clown." After the jump, watch the meal rebellion, but be aware, the language is NSFW. [via SoGoodBlog]
Good morning, serious eaters. To start the day, I submit to you these bacon, egg, and cheese Combos. I have to say, I can't think of a better breakfast combo than bacon, egg, and cheese, but I'm groggily freaking out about these things. They're at once compelling and repulsive. I can't help but wonder if Ed Levine would consider replacing the baked potato chips in his ideal diet breakfast with these. Probably not. But that gets me thinking about weird breakfasts. The most unconventional breakfast I've done in recent memory has been cold pizza—though that's not really too far out there. Maybe the cold-pizza omelet I made on the advice of a friend? What's the weirdest or most embarrassing thing you've ever eaten for breakfast? 'Fess up!
Good morning, serious eaters! Here's a good way to start the day—and the week. A crazy gallery of old-school cereal boxes. I think my faves here are King Vitaman and Tutti Frutti Flavored Twinkles. They remind me of the days when I'd eat nothing but Fruity Pebbles when it came to cereal. (I can't believe my mom let me get away with that.) What was your cereal of choice as a kid—or even today?
After months of experimentation I have finally come up with my perfect diet breakfast. I wish what I am about to tell you would be of more comfort to those of you who strive to eat a reasonably healthy diet, but it most assuredly isn't. In fact, what I'm about to tell you may be horrifying. Because I haven't settled on Greek yogurt or granola or toast made from whole-grain bread as my ideal diet breakfast, though I have grown to appreciate each of those foods in recent months. In fact I am using all three of the above-mentioned items in my diet breakfast rotation, along with a toasted bialy with the lightest schmear of whipped cream cheese.
But for this past week at least, my ideal breakfast turns out to be a 0.8-ounce bag of Kettle Bakes potato chips, a 20-ounce bottle of Diet Coke, and a banana. I find it has everything I'm looking for in a breakfast.
Unlike Stonehenge, which mysteriously had no defined origins or intent, the Baconhenge is here for a reason. To celebrate the goodness of bacon-wrapped french toast "stone" sticks that surround a frittata of mushrooms, potato and onions.
Baconhenge is not yet a UNESCO World Heritage Site but has the potential to inspire sacrifices, like breakfast cereal.
From May 22 to May 31, I traveled across country, from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, California. Here's a snippet from that week. —Erin Zimmer
This breakfast sandwich, a cousin of Eggs Benedict, doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. That's how you know it's underground in the breakfast world. At Causeway Cafe in Wrightsville Beach Island, North Carolina, Eggs Neptune have all the Benedictine ingredients (poached egg, English muffin and golden hollandaise), except the star ingredient here is crab meat.
The crustacean can be too overwhelming for some breakfasters, especially at a time when dishes don't veer far from eggs, sugar and butter. (Isn't it too early for crab? Wait, is that possible?!) But at Causeway Cafe, a laid-back eating shack in the four-mile-long island of Wrightsville Beach near Wilmington, Eggs Neptune hit the spot. Especially with the beachy vibe and saltiness of the country-fried potatoes, also served with the dish.
McDonald's Southern-style chicken biscuit tastes like an oversized McNugget in a buttery, greasy biscuit that you've had so many times before.
It's too late to snag a free Southern-style chicken biscuit from McDonald's—the breakfast promotion lasted today between 7 a.m and 10:30 a.m—but if you missed out, don't worry; it wasn't totally free. As we mentioned before, there was a medium or large drink caveat, so the "freebie" cashed in at a minimum of $1.50. Overall, it wasn't the most mind-blowing experience since McDonald's already sells biscuits and chicken McNuggets, and together, they approximate this same taste concept.
But borderline mind-blowing is that you can eat fried chicken for breakfast without hauling to a less-accessible Chick-fil-A or sneaking in last night's leftovers. McDonald's only has the normal-sized sandwich, whereas Chick-fil-A also does an adorable mini version.
McDonald's sells the Southern-style chicken biscuit for $1.99 and $3.39 for the value meal with drink and hash browns. So again, today's "deal" wasn't a huge deal.
Despite being subjected to the familiar "don't play with your food" parental instruction throughout my childhood, as an adult I can't help but succumb to a little makeshift breakfast sandwich action. The most popular (and easiest to assemble), has got to be the irresistible pancake-bacon combo, or you can get a little more serious, as in the case of the waffle sandwich I posted about here last September.
It's always fun to create your own monstrosity, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for the chef who saves you (and by that I mean my wife) from the embarrassment of a self-made sandwich at the table. Such is the case with the seared smoked pork loin and French toast sandwich served for brunch at Thuet, a Toronto restaurant-bakery-boulangerie-atelier run by Alsatian chef Marc Thuet.
It's with sadness that I write this post, as it's to inform you that the man who invented the Egg McMuffin has died. Herb Peterson, age 89, passed away Tuesday in Santa Barbara, California, where he operated six McDonald's.
The inspiration for Peterson's 1972 creation was the dish eggs Benedict, which he was very partial to, a company spokesman said. Interestingly enough, the now ubiquitous breakfast sandwich was first served open faced on a buttered English muffin.
Channeling the spirit of Uncrustables and Hot Pockets, in April Kraft will launch Bagel-Fuls, frozen bagels which come prestuffed with Philadelphia cream cheese. Bagel-Fuls are part of the segment called "hand-held breakfast sandwiches."
"Consumers are not spending a lot of time cooking these days," said Chitra Ebenezer, the director of marketing for the new brand. "Breakfast is one meal occasion they really struggle with."
And struggle I do. The constant battle to keep cream cheese stocked in my fridge has left me a cold and bitter person. The daily time-suck of visiting a bagel store so that someone else can cut and schmear my bagel has exhausted me to the point of tears.
Kraft, in its benevolent kindness, has heard my pleas, but I still have some questions.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, January 31, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Or, 'It's the Espresso, Stupid!
Whether you loved or hated the Starbucksian take on the McMuffin, it will officially be yanked, according to today's New York Times. After making some calls to Washington, D.C., locations, it appears that Monday is the national D-Day, which leaves just three days of devouring the pre-assembled shrink-wrapped sandwiches.
A Brief Starbucks History
Pre-Breakfast Sandwiches
In 1971, they sell just roasted beans and brewing equipment.
In 1982, they add live-made coffee and espresso drinks, all the while fearing that a foray into the beverage world will distract them from bean-roasting.
Along came pastries and banana breads... some ambiguous time in between...
Post-Breakfast Sandwiches
In 2006, they have jealousy issues with McDonald's and create six warm breakfast sandwiches: sausage; peppered bacon; sun-dried tomato with ham; reduced-fat turkey bacon; and eggs Florentine with spinach (all of which include egg and cheese).
On January 30, 2008, that dream dies. With a pending economic recession, Starbucks embraces a turn-around plan, focusing on its original plan: coffee.
When it comes to tiny sandwiches, my devotion is huge. I love tea sandwiches in all forms. I'm totally in favor of the slider trend that's been rolling across the country the last couple of years. Heck, I even started a burger blog pretty much as an excuse to talk about White Castle and its awesome sliders.
So when I saw the Chick-n-Minis at Chick-Fil-A while visiting my parents last week in suburban Kansas City, I was all over them.
Terrifying or adorable? Angie Naron's googly-eyed breakfast conjures up many conflicting emotions. "Oo, it looks delicious! ...Wait, they're all staring at me. Perhaps I will skip breakfast today." [via Cute Overload]
A piece on the op-ed page of the New York Times suggests that for health reasons we all switch the Thanksgiving meal to breakfast. Jennifer Ackerman writes:
So here is my proposal for revamping our holiday tradition: Invite the relatives for a morning feast of turkey frittata or wild turkey hash on English muffins, topped with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.
Ackerman even claims there is historical precedence for an early bird Thanksgiving.
Everyone, or just about everyone, has (or should have) and needs a go-to breakfast, the one they eat just about every weekday morning without thinking, a breakfast that is easy to prepare, can be eaten while reading the paper, and is a breeze to clean up. It should be reasonably filling, not too fattening, and nutritious according to some objective standard.
Your go-to breakfast can't be bacon and eggs or pancakes with sausage, because those are too unhealthy, fattening and time-consuming. Either of those could be your weekend go-to breakfast, but that's not what we are talking about here.
This delectable little morsel is a chwee kueh, or "water cake." A popular breakfast item in Singapore, it may not sound terribly appetizing (or plausible), but for most locals, the thought of sinking their teeth into these gems is enough to make mouths water.
They're made from a mix of one part rice flour to almost five parts water—hence the name. Steamed in shallow aluminum cups that look like tiny flying saucers, the "cakes" themselves are bland, but the best will boast an incredibly soft yet dense texture and yield effortlessly to the bite. They are then topped with sweet-salty chye por (preserved radish), which have been bronzed in a generous amount of lard, along with garlic, shallots, and sesame seeds. As with most local dishes, there is the omnipresent dollop of chili paste on the side.
Health concerns and a desire to reach out to the Muslim community—who are forbidden all things porcine—have led to many hawker stalls proudly sign-posting: "We use vegetable oil only. No lard." But ask the old-timers and they'll agree—it's just not the same without. (Psst… gram for gram, lard has "less saturated fat, more unsaturated fat, and less cholesterol" than butter!)
About the author:Wan Yan Ling, Serious Eats's overseas summer intern, is an impoverished grad student and sourdough finger-crosser living in Singapore. She can usually be found in the kitchen procrastinating on "real work," or online tracking down obscure recipes. Ling thinks eating alone is no fun, and she still believes in hand-mixing.
Food blogger Marvin of Burnt Lumpiawhips up a breakfast recipe post that somehow manages to connect such disparate elements as ube (a type of yam popular with Filipinos), pancakes, and Prince—as in The Artist. The result is a flapjack with a golden-brown exterior and a heart of royal purple.
On our way to Cape Cod for a little family R & R, we stopped for a bite (actually, more than a bite) at 3:15 p.m. at Nick's Diner, a hipster diner in what appears to be Providence, Rhode Island's newly fashionable West Side. My son, Will, ordered the turkey sandwich, my wife, Vicky, ordered the pulled pork and cheddar, and, in the name of responsible food research, I ordered the zucchini and potato soup, the steak sandwich, and a short stack of buttermilk hotcakes with rhubarb compote and whipped cream on the side. My wife grimaced as I ordered the pancakes. "How could you do that?," she asked.
Hilton Hotels are launching their Hilton Breakfast Program across their North American properties by this summer, featuring a system of color-coded labels "to assist guests visually in managing their dietary needs. The labels denote whether the menu item is low-cholesterol, low-fat, high-fiber, low-calorie, high-energy or an indulgence."
As Gridskipper's Omri Ceren said, "Who the hell is this for? Are there Jews who'll accidentally eat bacon if it's shaded in fuschia on the menu? Are there diabetics too stupid to avoid adding extra sugar to their pancakes? And if there are diabetics like that, why are we preventing evolution from disposing of them as is right and proper?"
Also I wonder what pink labels mean in the program—I mean, everyone knows pink means Paris! Maybe they'll be dishes fit for her chihuahua...
Marilyn Marter of the Philadelphia Inquirer says we might be in the middle of "a full-fledged breakfast war", with big companies fighting for portions of the $78 billion breakfast market. Ron Paul, president of a research firm that tracks the food-service industry, "estimates that 15 to 18 percent of breakfasts are currently being sourced from restaurants (compared with about 25 percent of dinners), with McDonald's, the largest restaurant chain, in the lead, feeding 27 million Americans daily." They've of course long had a serious breakfast menu, but the competition is trying to catch up: Burger King rolled out a ten item one last year, Dunkin Donuts is experimenting with gussied-up offerings, and even chains you would necessarily expect breakfast offerings from, like Starbucks and Subway, are getting into the action.
The market for at-home breakfast foods is no slouch either—projected sales for this year are $29.6 billion—so don't be surprised to see more and more breakfast items, of the healthy, organic kind as well as just the plain convenient, on the aisles and in the freezers every time you visit the supermarket.
Robin Mather Jenkins of the Chicago Tribune, lamenting that people don't eat breakfast sausages anymore because they think of them as fatty, shares a recipe for maple-sage breakfast sausage, lean and made from scratch. She says, "It's simple to make, and impressive. It takes just a few minutes to prepare, and it is many times better than store-bought, especially if you mix it up a day or two ahead of the time you plan to cook it, so the flavors can blend." Freeze the patties, and you can have breakfast sausages anytime you want!
The director Robert Rodriguez has a new movie out, Grindhouse, which I haven't gotten around to seeing yet, but I did love 2005's Sin City, his adaptation of the Frank Miller comic book. Turns out if you get the Sin City DVD, one of the special features on it is the second episode of Rodriguez's 10-Minute Cooking School, for his Sin City Breakfast Tacos:
He makes his tortillas from scratch, and uses both lard and butter! I may have to fight his new girlfriend Rose McGowan for him.
infraredherring made the french toast waffles from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook Waffles: From Morning to Midnight. The happy report is that they "come out deliciously eggy (like french toast) and slightly crisp around the edges (like waffles!). They were easy to make and thoroughly delicious!"
What keeps cooks faithful to one recipe is often some confluence of ease and surprise. David Eyre’s pancake possesses both. A batter of flour, milk, eggs and nutmeg is blended together, then poured into a hot skillet filled with butter and baked. Anyone confused? I didn’t think so.
The surprise comes, appropriately, at the end, when you open the oven door to find a poofy, toasted, utterly delectable-looking pancake. This soon collapses as you shower it with confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice, slice it up and devour it. It’s sweet and tart, not quite a pancake and not quite a crepe. But lovable all the same.
Frantic lifestyle? Need to prepare something fast for breakfast, lunch or evening meal? Or maybe you just want a traditional, comforting meal for the family in the colder weather.
Well, we’ve brought back the traditional SPAM® Fritter to fit just that bill. What’s more, all the hard preparation work is done for you – new SPAM® Fritters are ready to be ovenbaked for 15-20 minutes and served with your favourite vegetables or breakfast menu.
If you can't read the copy on the container in the photo above, the Fritters are described as "succulent pieces of SPAM® covered in a deliciously light and crispy golden batter." Truly, as Andrew said, the UK is the Hawaii of Europe when it comes to SPAM. God save the Queen!
Mrs Marv is so hardcore that she made sausage, biscuits and gravy for her mom—all of it completely from scratch. Yes, even the sausage! I think you'll agree with me when I say that I think she is a breakfast rock star.
Frankly, I'd be amazed by Gilbey's foolhardiness except that I'm too busy appalled by how ugly that tattoo turned out to be, especially when you consider how pretty the photo of an English breakfast that ran with Graham Holliday's In Defence of British Food feature today is! What do you make of it?
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 23, 2007 at 12:43 PM
I think these breakfast food pillows are adorable (if a little pricey) but I don't know if I can wholeheartedly support a brand with a tagline as heretical as "more fun than the real thing". I'm sorry, but no matter how cute the pillow, the equation will always be fake fried egg < real fried egg. It's what you can actually get in your belly that counts!
We’ve been proudly skipping the most important meal of the day, on a regular basis, for as long as we can remember. Cold cereal isn’t enough to coax anybody out of bed. Oatmeal takes too much time, and instant oatmeal isn’t worth it. Eggs, bacon, pancakes—those weekend brunch staples that invite us to sit down and linger over them—just aren’t practical on most Wednesday mornings. Why not sleep the extra 20 minutes?
Those who do eat breakfast have turned increasingly to the fast-food breakfast sandwich, the granola bar, the doughnut. Some of these options are better than others, but one important quality ties them together: We tend to put our breakfast production into the hands of others.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 20, 2007 at 8:26 AM
"Join IHOP to celebrate National Pancake Day (also known as Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday) on Tuesday, February 20, 2007. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., we’ll give you one free short stack (three) of our famous buttermilk pancakes. All we ask is that you consider making a donation to support local children’s hospitals through Children’s Miracle Network, or other local charities." They raised $340,000 in 2006 and are hoping to hit half a million today, so if you're inclined to eat pancakes and help out, you know what to do!
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 12, 2007 at 1:56 PM
Southern Fried Eggs Benny is kind of like Eggs Benedict, only with a fried egg instead of poached, sausage instead of Canadian bacon, and cream gravy instead of Hollandaise. If your mouth isn't watering by now, I'm not sure we can be friends.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 7, 2007 at 9:57 AM
The New York Times introduces a new column today: A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark. Its first installment is A Morning Meal Begs to Stay Up Late, exploring polenta's potential as a dinner item (it of course being the first cousin of grits): "It’s a perfect first recipe for this column devoted to foods I’m hankering to eat and proud to feed to anyone willing to pull up a chair ... or a couch. These are foods that are easy to cook and that speak to everyone, either stirring a memory or creating one."
Other highlights:
Marian Burros discovers the unexpected delight of unlaid eggs, which are eggs in varying stages of development that haven't been laid and are harvested from hens sent to slaughter. "[Dan] Barber tried lightly scrambling the eggs with fresh herbs from the greenhouse garden and served them in eggshells. This is what the unlaid egg should taste like: a deep, concentrated flavor, a hint of sweetness, but not overly rich. “You don’t get that in a full egg,” Mr. Barber noted."
Koreans Share Their Secret for Chicken With a Crunch by Julia Moskin: "Korean-style fried chicken is radically different, reflecting an Asian frying technique that renders out the fat in the skin, transforming it into a thin, crackly and almost transparent crust. (Chinese cooks call this “paper fried chicken.”)"
From the New York Times this morning: In the long run, like bagels, “you’re going to have arepas in every store,” predicted [Manuel A.] Miranda, whose innovations include a “toaster-friendly” version (square instead of round), and an experimental Web site that offers online sales nationwide.
Mass-produced toaster arepas? Somewhere, Chowhound founder and arepa aficionado Jim Leff is blowing a gasket.
Starting Tuesday, March 3, Starbucks' take on the value meal: For $3.95, you can get a tall latte and oatmeal, the latte with a slice of reduced-fat cinnamon swirl coffee cake, or drip coffee with a breakfast sandwich. And make way for two new breakfast sandwiches: bacon with egg and Gouda, and ham with egg and cheddar.
Growing up, I was one of those lucky kids who got to have any breakfast cereal they wanted: Fruit Loops, Cocoa Krispies, Apple Jacks. Nothing was off-limits. So you'd think that, after years of consuming massive amounts of sugar first thing in the morning, I'd still have a serious AM sweet tooth. 
When they are not slaying dragons or saving distressed maidens, superheros keep busy working on cereal endorsements. Batman, Spiderman, and the Hulk have all been tied to sugar-coated flakes or O's. Many of them have even forayed into Pop-Tarts. Gotta pay the cape and skin-tight suit dry cleaning bills somehow. 
First, there were 
Remember these guys?
Four to a waffle-sized sheet, these “cinnamon rolls” were puffy bits of yellow Eggo dough, stamped into a spiral, with tiny dabs of cinnamon filling and icing inside. The distinctive Eggo taste completely overwhelmed these little guys. The unbalanced ratio of filling-to-dough meant that, unless you really sought out the filling, you’d think you were just eating an awkwardly shaped classic Eggo.
Another change at Starbucks in light of recent underperformance? The reheated breakfast sandwiches—yeah, they're making them smell less. While the McMuffin lookalikes 
Who knows how the "last breakfast" topic came up with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but 
Morning, serious eaters. It's Friday, so we say treat yourself to a fried dough tire. Pastry chef and blogger Shuna Fish Lydon of the blog 
Hilton Hotels are launching their Hilton Breakfast Program across their North American properties by this summer, featuring 
Marilyn Marter of the Philadelphia Inquirer says we might be in the middle of "a full-fledged breakfast war", with 
infraredherring made the 
