N = C + {fb (cm) . fb (tc)} + fb (Ts) + fc . ta

Which is to say, boffins perfect the bacon butty.

Egg, Bacon, Chips and Beans

Searching around for breakfast-related blogs, I found this: eggbaconchipsandbeans. It's a wonderful documentation of British breakfast cafes, with a pretty standardized format for the blog entries -- along with the delightful descriptions ("The chips were sharp shards of crisp specialness, spearing their way into the soft flanks of the beans which were driven into a careering retreat for the side of the plate...") you always get photographs of the exterior, interior counter, booths, condiments, and, of course, the ebcb itself. A splendid celebration of the British fry-up, EBCB is always a fun read and a visual delight.

Man Has a Full English Breakfast...

Well, that's not news. What makes it news is, he had that full English breakfast... tattooed on his head.

My Toroidal Breakfast

My whole breakfast this morning was toroidal, without a doughnut in sight. I had a bagel with cream cheese and a bowl of Cheerios. I'm kind of wishing now that I had served the Cheerios in a bundt pan to continue the torus theme.

Scottish Oat Cakes

The GF decided to make Scottish Oat Cakes when she found the recipie in Peg Bracken's "I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World". The GF had this memory of her mom making something similar, though her mom has no memory of it. So, for two or three days, the GF kept saying "I'm going to make Scottish Oat Cakes for breakfast this week."

They were awful. Imagine a salty, fried cookie.

Every time the GF thought of them for the rest of the day, she got tears in her eyes.

Each egg I cracked this morning...

...had a chunk of shell about 1/8 of an inch fall into it. And I cooked four eggs for me and the GF. So I had to fish out four nearly identical bits of eggshell, one after another, before breakfast. Grumble, grumble.

My newest breakfast accessory is: I got a tin of dolmathes from Trader Joes, and cut the bottom out of it. It is just the right size for making a perfectly circular fried egg, which I like to do sometimes for no good reason.

Speaking of things done for no good reason: the GF and I were visiting my parents and brother in Southern California, and I decided to make Gas-house Eggs for breakfast. (I got the term "Gas-house Eggs" from the really awful musical "Moon Over Miami" -- you probably know them as Toad-in-the-Hole.) So Mom says, "Wait! I have Toad-in-the-Hole bread ready to go in the freezer!" Turns out she had made something that required large, circular crutons, so she cut out a load of holes with the cookie cutter, and then put the loaf in the freezer for later. Anyway, the confused look on the GF's face when she tottered out of the bedroom for breakfast and saw this entire loaf of bread with a core sample drilled out of it was priceless.

The Full English

I'm in London for a speaking engagement, and my hosts took me out for a "Full English Breakfast". Just look at this:


Yummy, and filling. I had no desire for lunch at all.


Below are my charming hosts, Brendan and Jo.