Remember Breakfast?

I've been thinking about breakfast. And how I miss the good old days. A pound of thick cut bacon with fried eggs, sunny side up, cooked in a deep puddle of maple smoked bacon grease, with a tall glass of fresh squeezed OJ, a couple of English muffins slathered in butter, and chocolate milk, not coffee, to wash it all down. Every day. 

Now that's a great cup of calories. Too bad the metabolism that could burn them up has hip implants now.  

On Saturdays, it was pancakes or waffles or French toast with many links of sausage, and everything was covered in butter and maple syrup. Followed by a steaming glass of OJ and a chocolate milk finish. Rinse and repeat on Sundays. 

Sometimes we had ruby red grapefruit, too. Covered in sugar, because that's how I used to roll. If there were no grapefruit, I made the best cinnamon toast on the planet. My daughters will back me up on this. Gotta be white bread toast. Spread the butter so thick that you can't see the bread. Pile on the cinnamon sugar so you can't see the butter. "Brown Top Only" until it's bubbly. If it doesn't bubble, you don't have enough butter and cinnamon sugar.  I should probably do a cinnamon toast demo on my blog one of these days. But only if you beg.

My first foray into something more "healthy" [which is in quotes, because who am I kidding?] was making crepes and rolling them up with fresh fruit. Usually blueberries and cut up strawberries. I would load up the fruit with powdered sugar and squeeze some lime to cut the sa-weetness. How ironic. My children ate all this, too. Only they called "crepes" Paper Pancakes. My little brother takes his crepes one step farther. He makes chocolate ganache for the filling. On dinner plate sized crepes. For breakfast. As sure as Zantac follows Boeuf Stroganoff, we are related. 

During the week, however, I was usually running late to work and often served my precious children cereal. Quelle surprise! Frosted Flakes. Fruit Loops. The usual food groups. 

Over time, the breakfasts of my youth and childbearing years gave way to the egg whites of menopause, followed by the yogurt and granola of my impending old age. However, unlike my conscientious friends, I refuse to include wheat germ on my list of acceptable foods. It is not food. It is something that belongs in a barn. 

Once, in a moment of zealous intention, after attending a "personal growth" seminar, I actually started mixing up a slimy concoction called "barley green" each morning. I gagged my way through a week of unpalatable fescue and threw the rest out. 

In an attempt to be healthy, I wouldn't mind sticking with fruit for breakfast, but American fruit is all about size, not flavor. Like those sour strawberry shaped doorknobs they sell. And those "handpicked" Michigan ben wa balls, the ones with no flavor.

What pains me most is that I eat the "healthy" stuff without any witnesses around to record my good deeds. That is so stupid. Most recently, I've discovered that those popular, ever-so-sour Greek yogurts have made some serious inroads into the sugary American-influenced yogurt flavors I can tolerate. That lip-puckering taste is taking up entire shelves in the Yoplait Chocolate Whips section. Could anything be worse? 

Which probably explains why I bought a pint of chocolate milk and a long john this morning on my way downtown. And savored every lip-smacking moment.