We usually sleep very late on Sunday, and since we almost invariably have some form of egg dish which is not quickly assembled, it’s often well into the afternoon by the time we sit down.

Today it was especially late (both the rising and the preparing, and thus the eating as well), once again ensuring that there would be only 2 meals for us on the day of rest. As I finished this particularly tasty breakfast just before 3, I couldn’t help telling the one assembled guest: “totally worth missing lunch”. Fortunately Barry had grabbed a digestive biscuit and a strong iced coffee even before I began cooking.

There was a centerpiece, because of the holiday (one which had meant a great deal to me growing up, and now only means spring), a 19th-century blown glass life-size egg, nestled inside an ancient (ca. 1800) miniature splint basket, both found in Rhode Island almost half a century ago.

• the ingredients for this particular breakfast included 6 free-range eggs and 4 thick slices of bacon from Millport Dairy Farm, the eggs dusted with a little dried orange-gold habanada pepper, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, served on the 2 plates with a sprinkling of micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge; there were also 4 halved Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, heated in a little olive oil with a bit of sliced scallion stems from Norwich Meadows Farm, salt, and freshly-ground pepper, sprinkled with a few chopped leaves of a basil plant from Whole Foods; and slices of a sturdy ‘Pane Mediterraneo’ from Eataly (whole wheat, rye flour; pumpkin, sesame, poppy, sunflower, flax seeds; millet and farro), which were barely heated in the old toaster
• the Sunday (‘Easter Sunday’ this time) music was Carl Heinrich Graun’s early 18th-century (exact date unknown) ‘Easter Oratorio’, Michael Alexander Willens conducting the Kölner Akademie