eggs, bacon, tomato, celery, scallion: lunch, with a passion

For something of a change, today our first meal, consumed as usual after most people have already finished their lunch, or brunch, actually did look more like a lunch, or at least a brunch, than the Sunday breakfast it was.

It was consumed with some passion, along with the Bach’s St Matthew that accompanied it.

  • four sections of thick bacon from pastured pigs raised by Millport Dairy Farm, slowly fried (to minimize the loss of fat) inside a classic seasoned steel restaurant-style pan, each then cut into four sections and arranged, not touching, inside a large glazed ceramic baking pan, followed by a layer of 5 sliced Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, and 6 free-range eggs, also from Millport Dairy Farm, broken into the pan on top of the tomatoes, scattered with most of one thick scallion and one small stalk of celery, both sliced and both from Phillips Farms, 10 or so fresh medium size sage leaves from Whole Foods, and a pinch or so from one dried red espelette pepper among those I had purchased from Alewife Farm on Friday (Tyler was returning to the Union Squared Greenmarket for the first time this year), baked, very loosely covered with tin foil inside a 375º oven until the whites had solidified, or about 25 minutes [at that point the yokes were actually no longer runny, meaning I had guessed wrong when I decided, the last time this had happened, that I should cover the pan with foil; I’ll adjust the timing instead when I repeat the recipe], sprinkled with Maldon salt and freshly-ground black pepper, a pinch of dried fenugreek from Bombay Emerald Chutney Company (purchased at the Saturday Down to Earth Chelsea Farmers Market last fall), and garnished baby red watercress from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • fresh, untoasted slices of a miche from Brooklyn’s She Wolf Bakery