(July 13, 2021)
my life has been all
bout a mad, bad cereal
with marshmallow stars*
*(Never once have I been tempted to try Lucky Charms, Cap’n Crunch, or any of a myriad other “new” cereals designed to pump sugars and candy – what? a cereal called cinnamon toast? Gotta be *&^%$#@* me!) – though I did worship at the alter of Sugar Frosted Flakes for a few years until my mother decided three eggs over hard, bacon, sausage, toast with pineapple preserves, two Duncan grapefruit halves (or waffles or pancakes added) and two or three 16-ounce glasses of milk should keep me from complaining for fifteen minutes or so and by then I’d be off pedaling my bike and mower-in-tow with gas can and oil can (and canteen of emergency water) to greet the sunrise and begin a full day of July lawnmowing for cash. The calories would not take me to supper. I made sure I had at least one yard to mow within a half-mile of home – AND LUNCH! No wonder that lady announced to her husband after his retirement: The cook also has retired. She didn’t mean it. Home is where Becky Feldman’s daughter more often than not would dish up four separate breakfasts for her three (oops, gotta count Dad, too – Four!) boys. I did her nearby shopping, and my garden contributed and dad’s citrus, too, though there was this big freezer in the breezeway and there was The Locker Plant on 13th Street where quarter- and half-steers were resting for their turn to dump into the raging maws of maw’s mayhems. So, we had little money: all four of her boys worked but she only took money from the mad monster who thought he ruled his roost. I loved breakfast. Still do. Even Parris Island did not cure me of breakfast. I just avoided the so-called scrambled eggs served from the steam tray. Filled up with pancakes, bacon, sausage, grits, cereal and milk and cut up citrus and melons. And then I saw some Yankee Marines putting milk on top of their buttered grits! That was a treasured moment and a time of instruction to those sad sacks. When I got out of Infantry Training Regiment I was introduced to The Line going into breakfast past the steam tables and into the galley where cookie would scramble you eggs or serve ’em sunny side howeveryouwant’em, and go back out and slather real butter and douse real maple syrup on stacks of hot pancakes. Needed a metal tray to go with my eggs-n-such fancy-ish plate. Milk. My gosh! All I could guzzle, and not wishy-washy skim, lo- or no-fat or even those fancy new 1- and 2-pecenters.
Today I treasure my big-size shredded wheat with fruit-of-the-day (often banana, blueberry and strawberries swimming in milk around three rafts of the wheat stuff. I tolerate Post Raisin Bran rather well, and think Kellogg should stick with Battle Creek history lessons. Tony The Tiger nothwithstanding.
Steel-cut oatmeal and that northern treat Wheatteena (sp?) are fine excuses to add more butter, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to anything that will sit still on the plate.
Make my own corned beef hash, though downtown’s Colonial Room does a fair rendition, if a mite paltry on the size. Even tried Red Flannel Hash with a leftover baked beet a time or seven.
Never could understand Dad’s love of sunny-side-up eggs. Learned my scramble technique from Jacques Pepin and his pal Julia Child and now tolerate slightly moist fixin’s unlike one brother’s insistence the scramble could pave roads.
But the kinds of calories I used to shovel past my tonsils required the furnace fully engaged or I’d die at fifteen a round globe to compete with mommie Earth. Hard, sweaty work is what you do to reward yourself with The Best Meal of The Day. Especially when you got a real nice modestly thick steak to top off the meal. Best in a white-hot small Lodge cast iron skillet and turned so quick the cow doesn’t know it’s been moved. Of course both biscuits with butter AND honey and both white and rye toast. But that’s just for dessert.
Now, I’m more sedentary and must munch mem’ries of past gluttonies. But I can cook up and serve myself three – or five – breakfast plates for a full day of eatin’ one or nine days a week, can’t I? We call that Breakfast As Supper, ’round here. Wonder if any of that goes good with Mac-N-Cheese?
richwrapper 