Tuesday, January 1, 2013

New Year's Day

Eastside Road, January 1, 2013—
FIRST MEAL OF THE YEAR: Breakfast out, at the first place Open Table could find for us open on this holiday. The menu offered brunch, of course; not one of my favorite meals, beset with mimosas and Bloody Marys and such, and crab and lobster and sausage; all either forbidden my stomach or not quite right for the time of day. (Not to mention following a week of rich food.)

So I settled for good old bacon and eggs — two eggs over easy, is how I like them. They came with roast potatoes, fine; and the irrelevant slice of watermelon, slice of orange on the peel, and two or three strawberries. I've never understood the point of these fruit garnishes, but I dutifully eat them, all but the strawberries. I know where they likely come from, and set them aside.

• Skates on the Bay, 100 Seawall Drive, Berkeley; (510) 549-1900THAT, OF COURSE, was Principle Meal of the Day. Once home, we were content with leftover buttered barley, standing in for the traditional Hopping John, and a green salad, and ice cream with hot applesauce.

Primitivo, Grifone, Puglia, 2010

2 comments:

Curtis Faville said...

What's the story about the strawberries?

Charles Shere said...

Briefly: Strawberries are among the least correct produce for your table, politically and, I think, nutritionally. At least hereabouts, where they're grown on greatly compromised soils. I object to them on grounds of likely pollution; on grounds of agricultural sustainability; on grounds of socioeconomic justice. And particularly on grounds of aesthetics: they taste, to me, like cottony wood, not like strawberries at all.

That said, in season, bought from farmers you trust, the right varieties of strawberry — Chandler, for example, and
fraises des bois, of course — are quite delicious. But with bacon and eggs?