Sunday, June 12, 2016.
James Beard's Eggs.
Mary Ann says that she will have exactly one meal with me today. So, after my stint in the choir loft at St. Jane's, I make my way (without her) to Abita Roasters, where I have a simple breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, a slice of toast, and coffee.
James Beard had a lot to say about scrambled eggs, most of it having to do with the need for making them very moist and soft without leaving them runny. Without knowing who James Beard was, I started eating eggs in my late teens, always asking that they be very lightly cooked. This was at the Camellia Grill, whose house style--especially in their famous omelettes--is to cook eggs very dry.
I also breakfasted a lot at at the Krystal in those years. I Later I overheard someone else at the Krystal counter ask for "soft-scrambled" eggs, giving me the right jargon to get what I wanted. In fact, I was already eating everything lightly cooked. I once even asked the Krystal lady on the overnight shift to grill the sausage patties rare. She refused to do it, because didn't I know that you always eat pork well-done?
Specifying soft-scrambled eggs works only about half the time. Cooks have an aversion to letting eggs go out wet. If I emphasize my desire, they almost always undercook to a ridiculous degree. I need an expression that communicates the ideal of damp in the center, but not runny on the outside. It could be that this is territory that cooks never enter--like getting a seven-thirty reservation at Commander's Palace. (It can't be done unless you're a VIP. You get six-thirty or nine, and like it.)
I have decided to take a ten-day vacation at the end of July to visit Mary Leigh and Dave in Washington, D.C. If I don't do it then, I will not see her until her wedding in September. But I also want to take my first extended road trip in some twenty years. I have a nice, new car to do it in, so why not?
I hit the highways a lot when I was a freelance writer and single. I went to places where nobody else wants to go. The first ride was to Des Moines, Iowa. Many of them were in West Texas and beyond. MA came with me during our brief courtship. She couldn't see the amusement value in them. Her way of driving is to go at top speed until you can't see where you're going--800 or 900 miles in a day, and she has gone even farther. I poke along on back roads and stay in motels, both of which she hates. Not that I blame her.
I have her blessing for my upcoming solo trip. She sincerely thinks it's something I really should do. So I get to work on the project. I find plotting the maps like in old times joyful.
Hangup: it's hard to find road maps anymore. I'd better check in at AAA.
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Monday, June 13, 2013.
A Map From (And To) Cracker Barrel.
I'm up early to make a first-thing appointment at the hospital's lab, in preparation for my annual examination next week. As I departed, I remember that after the last time I had this done I went to breakfast at the nearby Cracker Barrel. (I think I have the procedure mixed up with donating blood, after which you are told to drink juice and eat a little something.) Having done something once is enough to make me want to do it again.
My last visit to the Barrel left me with no more respect for the place since the days when the kids were little. They found the Cracker Barrel amazing. But when I went there a couple of years ago, I found it terrible, with everything either overcooked, disagreeably starchy, flavorless, or all three.
But I thought Cracker Barrel might sell road maps. They don't. But they do have a free coast-to-coast map showing the hundreds of other Cracker Barrels around the country, with reasonably good road details.
[caption id="attachment_51800" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Cracker Barrel in Covington.[/caption]
I don't feel right about taking their map without staying to eat. I order "The Old-Timer's Breakfast." It consists of scrambled eggs (yes, they did make them soft-scrambled at my request), bacon (thick, crunchy and very good), hash-brown potato casserole (with cheese holding the potato strings together: yuck), two underbaked biscuits, starchy grits, "sawmill gravy" (a somewhat rich white sauce, which I have never liked anywhere), and better coffee than I recall. Seems that the whole country is coming around to dark-roast coffee.
For a moment, I consider stopping in a Cracker Barrel every day on my upcoming road trip, to search for minute regional differences. But I rid myself of that thought right away. What is a trip through the Southeast without having breakfast every day in little, old shacks on the sides of old roads?
It continues to rain, and when it rains, it's with severe lightning, winds, and warnings from my phone.
MA and I have dinner at La Carreta in Covington. Now I have an excuse for going there as often as we do: they are running commercial on my radio show. I don't see that as a payback. It just helps me compose the ad-lib commercials when I have recent mental images and taste memories to talk about.
I also breakfasted a lot at at the Krystal in those years. I Later I overheard someone else at the Krystal counter ask for "soft-scrambled" eggs, giving me the right jargon to get what I wanted. In fact, I was already eating everything lightly cooked. I once even asked the Krystal lady on the overnight shift to grill the sausage patties rare. She refused to do it, because didn't I know that you always eat pork well-done?
Specifying soft-scrambled eggs works only about half the time. Cooks have an aversion to letting eggs go out wet. If I emphasize my desire, they almost always undercook to a ridiculous degree. I need an expression that communicates the ideal of damp in the center, but not runny on the outside. It could be that this is territory that cooks never enter--like getting a seven-thirty reservation at Commander's Palace. (It can't be done unless you're a VIP. You get six-thirty or nine, and like it.)
I have decided to take a ten-day vacation at the end of July to visit Mary Leigh and Dave in Washington, D.C. If I don't do it then, I will not see her until her wedding in September. But I also want to take my first extended road trip in some twenty years. I have a nice, new car to do it in, so why not?
I hit the highways a lot when I was a freelance writer and single. I went to places where nobody else wants to go. The first ride was to Des Moines, Iowa. Many of them were in West Texas and beyond. MA came with me during our brief courtship. She couldn't see the amusement value in them. Her way of driving is to go at top speed until you can't see where you're going--800 or 900 miles in a day, and she has gone even farther. I poke along on back roads and stay in motels, both of which she hates. Not that I blame her.
I have her blessing for my upcoming solo trip. She sincerely thinks it's something I really should do. So I get to work on the project. I find plotting the maps like in old times joyful.
Hangup: it's hard to find road maps anymore. I'd better check in at AAA.
[divider type=""]
Cracker Barrel in Covington.[/caption]
I don't feel right about taking their map without staying to eat. I order "The Old-Timer's Breakfast." It consists of scrambled eggs (yes, they did make them soft-scrambled at my request), bacon (thick, crunchy and very good), hash-brown potato casserole (with cheese holding the potato strings together: yuck), two underbaked biscuits, starchy grits, "sawmill gravy" (a somewhat rich white sauce, which I have never liked anywhere), and better coffee than I recall. Seems that the whole country is coming around to dark-roast coffee.
For a moment, I consider stopping in a Cracker Barrel every day on my upcoming road trip, to search for minute regional differences. But I rid myself of that thought right away. What is a trip through the Southeast without having breakfast every day in little, old shacks on the sides of old roads?
It continues to rain, and when it rains, it's with severe lightning, winds, and warnings from my phone.
MA and I have dinner at La Carreta in Covington. Now I have an excuse for going there as often as we do: they are running commercial on my radio show. I don't see that as a payback. It just helps me compose the ad-lib commercials when I have recent mental images and taste memories to talk about.
