It may not have been a typical American Fourth of July breakfast, but what passes for ‘typical’ in America these days?

It was a holiday, and I had some excellent fresh eggs on hand, a small amount of puntarelle left over from an earlier meal (also a bit of the anchovy dressing I had used), half of a small shallot (also remaining from an earlier meal), and part of a loaf of excellent sourdough bread, now two-days old.  I didn’t want to spend too much time putting together the first meal on a day we had decided to revisit the Whitney Museum;  we were also getting pretty hungry, and this improvisation looked like it wouldn’t take much time.

It was very good, and it hadn’t really taken much time at all.

I think what I did may have been my own invention; if I can trust my invented Italian, it would be described as uova fritte con scalogni; puntarelle con acciughe [fried eggs topped with shallots cooked in butter until just tender, served with an Italian chicory dressed with anchovy, garlic, and vinegar].

• the eggs, fried sunny side up, were from Tamarack Hollow Farm, and the shallot, cooked until softened, was from John D. Madura Farm
• the puntarelle was from Paffenroth Gardens, prepared in the Roman manner
• the toast was from a loaf of a sourdough bâtard from She Wolf Bakery, at the Greenmarket
• the music was Joan Tower’s ‘Made in America’, a fantasy on the theme of  ‘America the Beautiful’