It wasn’t Sunday breakfast, and we can’t even pretend it was brunch; we had our first meal of the day somewhere between the hours when decent folks have their lunches and dinners.

Maybe that’s why I ended up putting so much into it. While the meal looks fairly straightforward in the picture, at least by my bacon-&-eggs custom, there were definitely even more herbs and spices than usual.

NOTE; Not quite visible in the photo was my pleasure in having finally kept 6 yokes intact on their voyage from shell to table; I’m rarely able to manage that.

• the elements that arrived on the plates were: thick slices of bacon and large very fresh pullet eggs from Millport Dairy Farm; lightly-toasted slices of 2 breads, a ciabatta from Bread Alone (local unbleached wheat flours), and a Bien Cuit ‘Campagne’ traditional sour dough from Foragers Market; a bit of sliced green stem from a Scarlet scallion and one finely-slice fresh habanada pepper (the first of the season!) both from Norwich Meadows Farm; a pinch of  L’ekama in dry spice form from NYShuk Pantry; chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm; a pinch of dried fenugreek from Nirmala Gupta’s ‘Bombay Emerald Chutney Company‘ at Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market on 23rd Street; a bit of fresh fennel seed from Berried Treasures; rich Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’; Maldon salt, freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper; and some strands of fresh (micro) fennel from Windfall Farm
• the meal was late, but the music choice, a set of evening songs set by Monteverdi, didn’t quite reflect the hour: was Monteverdi’s incredibly-beautiful 1610 ‘Vespers of the Blessed Virgin’, performed by the English Baroque Soloists and John Eliot Gardiner