The

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June 11, 2008

At Breakfast, De-Segregation Is the Law

There is a school of thought when it comes to food that it will all mix in the digestive tract, so distinctions are irrelevant from the get-go. This approach has indeed inspired some of the greats, like beef stew and ice cream cake, and there are some who hypothesize that the great Earl of Sandwich, who lives on chiefly during lunch, subscribed to this.

This school’s penetration is least noticeable at the breakfast table, where segregation of food items remains the rule.

Why this is remains a mystery, because many of those things most commonly eaten at breakfast have a natural affinity for one another.

We speak specifically about eggs and breakfast meat, and also cheese and some kind of breadstuff. Many people agree that these are the elements critical to a healthy breakfast, yet they are most commonly served as individual elements (unless stacked together in a morning insult to our friend the Earl as the bagelwich).

Turn to something like the prepackaged crescent roll. They are the kind that comes in perforated sheets and in tubes. They are pitched by something that titters when poked in the stomach.

There are six of them when laid out flat and torn apart at the seams. Do so, and leave aside on a cookie sheet. They are a triangle shape, but are malleable enough that you would be warned not to test the hypothesis that triangle angles always add up to 360 degrees.

Now comes the filling – three eggs, a handful of cooked breakfast meat, some cheddar cheese (for reasons known to no one living, mild cheddar is the cheese that best complements morning), and whatever vegetables sound good – onion, green onion and mushrooms rise to mind.

Scramble the egg, which is to say stir it over heat until firm, not call it out to intercept unknown intruders in your airspace. Once done, add the other ingredients.

Turn your attention to your prefabricated triangles. Lay three of them out, and scoop one-third of your egg and meat mix onto each of them. Lay over those the three remaining triangles. You are lucky, because the same malleability that would render you insane if you tried measuring angles allows this with little difficulty (if it creates big difficulties, consider giving up cooking and acquainting yourself with the delivery menu of a good Chinese place).

If you bothered to read the instructions on the prefab triangle package, you will perhaps remember that the oven should be preheated to 350 degrees. If not, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Once this is so, slide your crescent pockets into the oven and cook for about 20 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes. You will perhaps notice that the crust attempts to break as if in a commercial. The prefab triangle was hoping to be a crescent and torn apart as in the commercial. It has served another purpose, and allowed diverse schools of thought to be represented at the breakfast table.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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