I ate breakfast! Like, a whole bunch of times!

If you've heard it once, you've heard it 9,654 times: Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day. Frankly, I feel sorry for lunch and dinner. No one has bothered to create an adoring and catchy slogan for them. There is no "Lunch is the Most Awesomest Meal of the Day" to boost its confidence and morale.

So to support the underdogs of the eating world, I have chosen to boycott breakfast for much of my adult life. Yes, this is the true reason I so seldom eat breakfast. It's for the cause! I am an activist!

But whenever my boyfriend comes to town, the breakfast ban goes up in flames. My fridge fills up with bacon and eggs and more bacon and more eggs. I have learned that boyfriend, in fact, equals bacon. You can't have one without the other. And you can't have boring breakfasts. Generic Grape Nuts and nonfat milk are not welcome.

Here is a five-days-in-the-life photo diary of the breakfasts we recently cooked and enjoyed:

Monday: Breakfast Tacos!
Mexican food should not be limited to lunch and dinner. Scramble up some eggs and fold them up in a warm corn tortilla with cilantro, sour cream, avocado, refried beans, quinoa, and leftover steak strips. Shake the Tapatio bottle over the taco like you're angry it at. Confucius Says: Spicy Breakfast = Good Day.











Tuesday: Egg & Sausage Toasts
As a huge supporter of the marriage of sweet & savory, chicken apple sausages are a favorite breakfast meat. Here they join fried eggs, sauteed mushrooms, melted sharp cheddar and basil on slices of toasty sourdough.





Wednesday: Homemade Parmesan Pepper Biscuits, Sweet & Red Potatoes, Bacon & Fried Egg
I have a reputation as a bad biscuit baker. You'd be more apt to use one of my lil biscuits as a door stop, rather than put it in your mouth. But thanks to science, I am improving! I learned that the butter must be ice cold and should be left in the dough as pea sized bits. I learned about folding the dough, before cutting, to create flaky layers. I am now the biscuit master! Ok. I'm not. Yet. But these were pretty dang good.


Thursday: Pineapple Bacon Pancakes with Apple & Pineapple Topping
Breakfast in bed! Whoever invented that concept deserves a medal in the shape of a bacon strip. I ate these pineapple/bacon pancakes under the covers, along with a side of (burnt = sad) potatoes and some fancy fruits.








Friday: McNotMcDonald's Egg McMuffins
Yes, Mcdonald's is bad. But their Egg McMuffins? Those are good. I like to make my own at home in under 10 minutes. Fry up an egg and a slice of ham while the muffin toasts. Let some cheese melt on your hot egg. Get out that Tapatio and go to town. Voila! McYum.

A Wish Come True: Seattle's Best Pizza

Growing up as a little girl in suburbia, one of life's great excursions was a trip to the mall. And in the center of my mall was something grand: a real, live, working fountain. My mom would dig deep into the folds of her eel skin wallet and produce two pennies. One for my younger sister and one for me. She instructed us to make a wish and toss them in. I have no idea what my sister wished for. A better haircut (it was the 80's)? A pony? A trust fund? But I wished for the same thing every single time. I'd squish my eyes close, squeeze the penny in my fist and chant this mantra: "I hope we have pizza for dinner. I hope we have pizza for dinner. I hope we have pizza for dinner" and chuck the copper coin into the fountain.

Things have really changed since then. I'm older, I don't live in suburbia, and all of my local malls are fountain free. Seriously! Not a single pizza wishing fountain in sight! So I am forced to be proactive: if I want pizza for dinner, I have to go get pizza for dinner. Sigh.

Luckily this is an easy task, as I only have eyes for the pies at a single Seattle pizzeria: Via Tribunali.

You can forget about pineapple, green peppers or even pepperoni; VT doesn't use them. They stick to traditional Italian ingredients like prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and olives. Their incredibly fresh tasting pizzas strictly follow the guidelines set by Verace Pizza Napoletana, a Naples based organization that sets the standard for authentic Napoli style pizza.

Via Tribunali's wood fire brick oven looks like an adorable Alaskan igloo, but the bricks (made from the ashes of Mt. Vesuvius) were flown in from Naples. This extra hot oven cooks the pizza in a flash, and allows the thin crust to stay chewy underneath, and bubbly brown around the edges.

Ordinarily, I fall victim to being a topping whore. But at Via Tribunali I am perfectly content with the margherita pizza, topped only with the freshest, vibrant red tomato sauce, blobs of fresh mozzarella and basil leaves. But I'd never refuse the Piazza Dante (pictured) topped with that amazingly bright tasting San Marzano tomato sauce, melty provolone, pink prosciutto, cherry tomatoes and a leafy layer of peppery arugula.

Slice by slice, I chowed down on both varieties last night. In fact, I ate half of each pie, which means I ate *ahem* an entire pizza for dinner.

But so what! Over the years, I probably tossed fifty pizza pennies into the wishing fountain. The actuality of my parents ordering pizza on one of those nights? It might have happened once. Once! It doesn't take a mathematician to see that I am owed 49 pizzas. And I plan to eat them, one delicious bite at a time, at Via Tribunali.

A Non Food Related Post

I am definitely a supporter of good dental hygiene. Brushing, flossing, tongue scraping - yes yes and yes! But apparently I am a boring brusher: I tend to tend to my teeth in the comforts of my own bathroom.

This morning, as I walked up my street to get a decaf latte (it really perks you up!), I saw a man brushing his teeth. While walking briskly down the street. He was really taking care of business too! He appeared angry at his teeth, violently scrubbing the plaque off them, while carrying a little paper cup full of rinsing water and a tube of toothpaste in the other hand.

I found this sight thrilling! It reminded me that I do, in fact, live in a quirky city, and not an oversize town parading as a city. The last time I felt this good about my street was the day I moved in. I walked out of my building to find a woman taking her kitten out for a walk on a leash.

So thank you teeth brushing guy! You made my Seattle Sunday.

Cookies for President!

I'm not one to do cartwheels for cookies. For that matter, I probably won't pirouette for pies or tremble for tarts. I will, however, use a lot of annoying alliteration to tell you that I usually prefer the savory over the sweet.

But. BUT. Things have changed. A single cookie recipe has altered my normal opinion of dessert. Day after day, night after night, I walk Zombie-like into the kitchen to eat just one – okay, maybe two... Alright! I'll have three! cookies until every last crumb is gone. The extra dough doesn't last long in the freezer.

As for the recipe, it's origin is a bit embarrassing to me. You may have heard it before. It's the Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. Ring a bell? The recipe comes equipped with a cheeseball story – that may or may not be true – and is at least 20 years old.

The tale goes that some lady asked the department store for the cookie recipe, and was falsely charged $250 – instead of the $2.50 she expected. But boy did she get her revenge! She decided to distribute the recipe to everyone she knows, and asked all of them to keep passing it along. Boy is she fierce!

Dumb.

But the fact of the matter is – the cookies are amazing. They are chewy and nutty and perfect – and you must make them.

Addictive Chocolate Chip & Pecan Cookies

Makes about 35 cookies

2 1/2 cups oatmeal – blended into a powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
12 ounces chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups pecans (or whatever nut you like)

*I added a big handful of shredded coconut to my batter and it was delicious!

-Cream the butter and both sugars in a big bowl
-Add eggs and vanilla
-Mix in flour, blended oatmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda
-When it's all blended together, add chocolate chips, nuts, and coconut if you know what's good for you
-Roll into flattened balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
-Bake for 9 minutes at 375 degrees.
Roll leftover dough into logs, wrap in plastic or parchment paper – and store in the fridge or freezer. You can cut off thick slices whenever you crave a cookie, and bake for 10 minutes.

The cookies will be very soft, and appear a bit raw after baked. Don't panic! Don't bake them longer! They will firm up when they cool.

Sushi & Jewshi

It's not polite to brag. I know this because my mother taught me manners. But I haven't lived with my mother for 11 years - so fuck it! I'm gonna brag!

Look at my beautiful homemade sushi!

I have no witty clever things to say about the sushi that I rolled last week. I'm not particularly in the mood to give you instructions on how to roll your own. I just really wanna show off the photos.

And I wanna say that I wanna make sweet love to Uwajimaya. This amazing and massive Asian grocery store, with its rows upon rows of tofu and noodles and frozen dim sum and what-the-heck-do-I-do-with-this produce is the perfect spot to gather sushi making materials. I was literally bouncing and skipping through the fish department. Fish excites me!

You can buy schools of sashimi-grade fish by the slab or, far more affordable, just a few savory slices. You can buy a small fan of seared tuna, a chunk of locally smoked salmon, a single octopus tentacle, and a healthy hunk of unagi.

And if you celebrate Hanukkah, you can roll up a batch of Jewshi. Sushi for Jewish people! Get it? Get it? Skip the bagel and create a smoked salmon, cream cheese and green onion roll. The adventurous should utilize the ultimate Jewshi roll filling: gefilte fish! Served sans wasabi, but with a squirt of horseradish of course.

Garbage Gourmet

They say one man's trash is another man's treasure. But I'm pretty sure the bloke who wrote that line wasn't imagining me shoving dumpster dived baguettes into a garbage bag at 11pm on a Tuesday night.

That's right, dumpster diving! Something I've been dying to do for years!

I happen to think there are several appealing aspects to rummaging around a big metal dumpster looking for a bit to eat. First off, the adventure! It's like searching for buried treasure. Plus you have to go when its dark and you can wear all black and a ski mask if you really want to get all dramatical. Second, I despise waste. I reuse tin foil and scrape the mold off my cheese. I don't need to remind you how much perfectly edible food Americans absentmindedly fling into the bin each day. And third, this food is free! With our collapsing economy, dumpster diving is as sensible as dropping J Crew for JC Penney.

I know what some of you are doing right now. You are making a snooty little wrinkled up sourpuss face. You are throwing up juuuust a little bit in your mouth. You are about to call and tell me you “have come down with SARS and can't possible make it to my dinner party Saturday night.”

But you should stop your sneering! Diving for dinner doesn't have to be disgusting. I didn't go snorkeling through your grandma's trash can, looking for a half-eaten Entenmann's cake. No sir. Hours after America voted to elect its first black president, three garbage giddy gals and I pulled up to one of Seattle's best bakeries. A bakery that charges about $5 for a loaf of it's organic artisan bread. A bakery whose name I am hesitant to mention, because I don't want it to start locking it's dumpsters!

And what delightful dumpsters they are! Lift a heavy metal lid, hop in the bin, and you will be knee deep in delicious bread; still securely tucked into paper sheathes. We plucked up round, crusty loaves of rosemary bread sprinkled with sea salt and squishy-soft sweet potato bread laced with pecans. There were long swords of sourdough and bags of dainty dinner rolls. Three garbage-free dumpsters. Piled with bread. We hardly made a dent.

I was scrounging for pleasure, but there was also some do-gooder diving on that historic night. Two of my freegan friends were gathering grub for Food Not Bombs, a grass roots organization that feeds the homeless with food that would otherwise go to waste.

The next morning at home, as I munched on slices of fragrant rosemary toast with butter, I decided this was only the beginning. Adventure! Less waste! Free food! I will scour every last dumpster in Seattle until I find the makings of a complete meal! And if I have to dramatically don an all-black outfit and a ski mask to do so. Well...so be it!

Guinea Pig: Peru's Other White Meat

Americans aren't too hip on eating their pets. They cower at cat consumption and look down on dog dining. If it's fluffy, furry or fetches, chances are they aren't interested. In fact, they are downright appalled!

I say they because I have never included myself in this camp. Yes, I love cats to an embarrassingly mockable degree, but given the chance, I might take a taste of a Tabby. No offense to adorable animals everywhere, but when it comes to cuisine, I wanna try everything! Which is why I couldn't wait to eat in Peru. A country that makes no excuse for its love of the guinea gig. Guinea pig on a plate, that is.

Called cuy, the rascally rodent usually only shows up on more expensive restaurant menus, and is considered a sort of delicacy.

It was Day Two of our five week trek around Peru, and we could wait no longer. Even my boyfriend, who as a child adored his guinea pig named Whinnie, was eager to try the pet on a plate. We grandly ordered up a cuy, along with an alpaca steak, in the charming city of Arequipa.

But even I was not prepared for the crisp, brown, tooth-to-tail animal set before me. He came with teeth, and claws, and hair!

His little guinea pig arm rested stiffly in my mashed potatoes.

He was also no picnic to eat. Fork and knife were abandoned for fingers, and once I managed to peel off his difficult layer of thick, rubbery skin, there was not much meat underneath. What meat there was tasted strong, gamy and...well, rodenty. Much more of a novelty than a delicacy, if you ask me.

A delicacy you can look in the eye, and even scratch behind the ears, if you stroll through some of Peru's amazing open air markets. At a street market in Calca, a quaint community in the Sacred Valley, guinea pigs squeak their days away in cages, oblivious to their dinner plate fate.

And oblivious to the luxurious lives their guinea pig pals are living up north.

America! Where the pets are just for petting.