Starting the Day with a Good Breakfast
May 2, 2012
The grocery stores have been getting wonderfully plump and flavorful Hass avocados this past week, and I’ve been indulging. I think avocados are one of Nature’s perfect foods. Since they are a bargain right now, I’ve been treating myself. For breakfast, I make a plate of nachos topped with a fried egg and diced avocado and salsa. Very hearty and delicious!
Thoreau Thursdays (43): Tasting the Fruits of Your Labors
February 9, 2012
“It is a vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“The fruits do not yield their true flavor to the purchasers of them.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
How poor Thoreau would find me, a city dweller, who procures virtually all of my food from supermarket shelves. And while our neighborhood farmers’ markets give us access to locally grown food, we simply buy it with our coins. How rarely do we plant, nurture, harvest and preserve our own food. According to Thoreau, we are missing out on the true flavor of food when we do not grow or pick it with our own hands.
Having grown up on a farm, I still hold a deep appreciation for the hard work that goes into bringing food to the table. I’ve butchered chickens, so I understand the life that was once vibrant in my packaged chicken quarters. I’ve milked a cow by hand, so I remember the source of my glass of milk. I’ve made my own blackberry jam from hand-picked berries, so I can appreciate the work behind a jar received as a gift.
Much is lost when we forego laboring with our own hands, for the value of the work is not just the finished product, but also the feelings of artistry, productivity, and self-worth built along the way. And it is true that we savor the end product more when we’ve created it ourselves.
One of my colleagues gives our library staff jars of her homemade blackberry jam each Christmas, and each spoonful bursts with the tastes of summer and Shirley’s shared joy in nature’s abundance. Everything that is in a jar of Shirley’s jam is what Thoreau is alluding to in this week’s quote.
“The advantage of riches remains with him who procured them, not with the heir. When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands. But not only health, but education is in the work.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Playing with New Toys
December 30, 2011
I got a brand new waffle maker for Christmas!
I’ve always been more of a waffle person than a pancake person. So when my trusty old waffle maker went on the blink after 30 years of use, I missed having waffles for breakfast. I had a waffle maker on my Wish List for some time. I was hoping to find a serviceable one at a garage sale last summer. No luck. So when my Dad sent us some money for Christmas, I used it to buy a new Chef’s Choice waffle maker.
I’ve already made waffles three times! I don’t think you ever get too old to play with new “toys.”
Breakfast at the Bay Cafe
December 30, 2010
One of my husband’s and my favorite breakfast places in Seattle is the Bay Cafe in Fishermen’s Terminal. We both woke up early this morning and decided to treat ourselves to breakfast. The crescent moon shown brightly in the clear dawn. The Olympic Mountains glowed white on the horizon. Few people were stirring. Our table at the Bay Cafe overlooked the moorage full of commercial fishing boats. It’s always fun to be by the water.
Chanterelles
December 14, 2009
We had company this weekend, and they came bearing the gift of a sack full of chanterelle mushrooms, which they had foraged in Oregon. What a lovely present! We ate some of them scrambled with eggs for breakfast. . . a gourmet treat.
Simple Goodness
November 1, 2009

A simple breakfast
Everything Good is Simple
by Nikki Giovanni in Bicycles: Love Poems
Everything good is simple: a soft-boiled egg . . . toast fresh from the
oven with a pat of butter swimming in the center . . . steam off a cup
of black coffee . . . John Coltrane bringing me “Violets for My Furs”
Most simple things are good: Lines on a yellow legal pad . . . dimples
defining a smile . . . a square of gray cashmere that can be a scarf . . .
Miles Davis Kind of Blue
Some things clear are complicated: believing in a religion . . . trying
to be a good person . . . getting rid of folk who depress you . . . Horace
Silver Blowing the Blues Away
Complicated things can be clear: Dvorak’s New World Symphony . . .
Alvin Ailey’s Revelations . . . Mae Jamison’s ride in space . . . Mingus
Live at Carnegie Hall
All things good are good: poetry . . . patience . . . a ripe tomato on the
vine . . . a bat in flight . . . the new moon . . . me in your arms . . .
things like that
Breakfast Table
July 27, 2009

Our Sunday breakfast
“Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well-provisioned breakfast table.”
— Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables
I love leisurely Sunday mornings when I have the time to make a big farm breakfast. Here is the muffin recipe I used for today’s breakfast provisions. I don’t recall where I got this recipe.
Blueberry-Orange Muffins
1-1/2 c flour
1/2 c sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
salt
1 large egg, beaten
3/4 c sour cream
1/3 c orange juice
1 Tbsp melted butter
Mix together until just moistened. Add 3/4 c frozen blueberries. Divide into 10 muffin tins, then bake at 350 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes, or until done. Cool 10 minutes, then top with glaze.
Glaze
1 Tbsp butter, softened
1 Tbsp cream cheese, softened
1/2 c powdered sugar
2 Tbsp orange juice