Baked eggs, scones, and donuts

Best thing to come out of Portland in years has to be C.’s tradition of homemade donuts on Halloween. She and A. had me and L. and a bunch of folks over for them and other assorted sweet and savory brunch items. L. made our contribution, a spinach and tomato and egg bake that looked just like it did in the picture on the website, perfect. I took a cube of that, my weight in donuts, and a scratch cheddar scone and settled in to idly watch the Jets game, drifting in and out of conversations, listening to the doorbell ring and watching new arrivals bearing quiche and bagels and cookies and candied treats.

 

Eggs and toast

Baby, it’s cold outside. And inside too. I’m sure they’ll turn the heat on right when we get hit with some unseasonal heat wave. I’m wrapped up in many layers on the couch with my Quintilian, just wanting to be in bed. So breakfast for lunch. I put cheese in the eggs. And two slices of toast.

 

Corned beef hash and eggs

You know those days when you’re splayed out on your back cutting bloody chunks out of your guts and offering them up to a totally indifferent universe? Yeah. The answer is brunch with somebody who’s watched you neurotically claw at your own eyeballs since 1993. I had the hash, good but not quite warm enough, and L. had the huevos rancheros. The little amuse-bouche blueberry muffins were a nice touch, as were free refills on the iced coffee. Then we went to the movies and ate candy.

 

Eggs, toast, potatoes, bacon, and a green salad

I like a basic egg breakfast out a restaurant, the kind that comes with a little bit of everything, so that’s what I ordered. L. had the baked eggs. We determined that the price was not only way high for the neighborhood but too high for what came on my plate, as L. noted. I ate and L. and I gossipped and I felt myself relax into a span of days with nary a deadline in sight. I could tell I was feeling a little punchy when I made a pitch to come back for Comedy Night in a couple of Tuesdays. The experience M. and I had at the Potowatomi Casino Bonkerz! should have cured me for good.

 

Chorizo hash

I’m not sure what they do to the hollandaise to make it spicy like that or the chorizo in such perfect sized bits ‘n’ pieces, or how they cook the potatoes just soft enough but still firm, or how they poach the eggs just runny enough but not too runny, but really, if I could live on chorizo hash with poached eggs alone, that’s how I’d do it. L. had the burger instead, and it came with a little blue cheese potato salad that I tried and found a little cold. I gave off some caffeinated rant about how little I care about decorating a place, all that’s why people keep lovers, isn’t it, so they’ll decorate the kitchen and just leave me out of it! but I think L. found it at least a little endearing, not unlike the tiny little sugar spoon in the glass dish on the table. I didn’t eat the little green salad that came with it–it didn’t belong on that fatty, greasy plate, not at all.

 

Mushroom, onion, and swiss cheese omelette, plus a bloody mary

L. declared my bloody mary the worst thing I’ve ever had in my mouth. I wouldn’t go quite that far, having lived through my twenties, but the drink was definitely up there, as were the home fries on my plate. The omelette itself was good, if suspiciously neat and tidy. I felt a little like I was eating on an airplane, back in the days when you did that, as if my breakfast for lunch had been re-heated in midair. Still, good college basketball games played in front of me and behind me, and if I’m ever in the mood for wings and half price happy hour drafts, I’ll be back.

 

Mushroom and swiss omelette

Has Yaffa gotten worse, or have I just grown up? asked L. when we left the restaurant. I was pretty sure it was the latter, and said so as we walked over to the dog park and the scene of the original crime. Still, the orange juice was good, fresh-squeezed and the right amount and it came with it. Something about orange juice still feels unimaginably luxurious, even now in a time, for me, of plenty. It’s nice to feel falsely that I’m getting some for free.

 

Baked eggs, turkey bacon, apple bread, plus fixins

We dished up in the kitchen and took our plates out to the table and sat around talking about where everybody is these days and how they like it: H. up at Gonzaga (go Zags!), K. in NOLA, A. in Portland, me in NYC, all the ‘rents still in Idaho. My testiness, under lock and key while we unwrapped presents and engaged in general cheer, made its holiday debut when my father suggested that New Orleans is the only distinctive American city. What about New York?! I said incredulously. It’s not that different from Chicago was his absurd answer. My top! It was blown! With that out of the way I just kept eating and eating and eating. The baked eggs were ’southwestern’ and came with salsa and avocados, so I had seconds of that and thirds of the turkey bacon–so salty!–and finished up with a chewy chocolate cookie and the cutest little sugar cookie mitten I’d ever seen. It was so small! And sugary! And shaped just like a mitten!

 

Egg muffin sandwich, plus donuts

A. and C. made eggs with cheese and faux sausage on muffins and dished it all out onto plates while we ate and talked at the kitchen table, lazily making our way through the waning hours of A.’s visit. The donut dough had been chilling in the refrigerator as we polished off our savory and readied for sweet, so C. fried up a couple dozen donuts and the rest of us took turns at the Wii. A. dominated tennis while I was an uncanny bowler.