On Saturday I learned that our very local (less than one block away) Chelsea Saturday greenmarket has several new local vendors, one of which, Breadivore, offers, among other delicacies, pretzel rolls, in a choice of plain, black pepper, or grainy mustard.

Pretzel rolls! From a stall just down the street! And made in Long Island City!

I picked a pepper pretzel pack, and today we had [every one of them] with our more usual bacon and eggs; I sliced them horizontally and dry-toasted each on the surface of a seasoned steel pan above a medium flame.

They were wonderful.

• the elements of this little feast, aside from the pretzel rolls, were: a few rashers of some quite thick Dickson’s Farmstand sugar cured house-made bacon; 6 fresh eggs from Old Mother Hubbert Dairy, sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper, Baden seasoning salt (the gift of a friend who had been given the recipe while visiting the Upper Rhine), whose ingredients included sea salt, 5 different seasoning peppers, dehydrated vanilla, lemon and lime, by a chef in Baden-Baden itself), a crushed section of a bight red dried Ají dulce pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, and garnished with some trimmed wood sorrel from Willow Wisp Organic Farm; some whole milk (dear to this midwestern son of a long line of Wisconsin and Rhineland dairy farmers), specifically, an outstanding, close-to-raw milk-taste product processed with a remarkable low-input low-impact pasteurizer, also from Mother Hubbert; a small salad of torn frisée from Willow Wisp Farm warmed in a bit of Whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil with some chopped spring red onion from Norwich Meadows Farm, tossed with chopped dill, also from Norwich Meadows Farm, dressed with more olive oil and drops of a Columela Rioja 30 Year Reserva sherry vinegar

After, there was coffee.

• we were introduced to David Meyers’ Resistance Coffee early last year by a friend and fellow member [of it], and we’re not likely to ever let go

 

• this Sunday’s liturgical music choice was Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657-1726), ‘Leçons De Ténèbres’, with soprano Sophie Karthäuser, the Ensemble Correspondances conducted by Sébastien Daucé

It was the first morning of December, so of course we enjoyed local tomatoes with our breakfast.

The 2 that I used in this meal, saving the rest for a dinner the next day, came from a small stash that I thought at the time would be the last of a long season, but at the Greenmarket 3 days later I picked up 2 medium heirloom tomatoes and a basket of heirloom cherry tomatoes from a Pennsylvania farmer located further to the south (roughly 60 miles further) than the New York farm where these had been grown.

• our breakfast, a little simpler than usual, included 4 slices of thick bacon from pastured pigs and 6 fresh eggs from pastured chickens, all from the Amish family-run Millport Dairy Farm stand in the Union Square Greenmarket, the eggs seasoned with a local Long Island sea salt (from P.E. & D.D. Seafood), freshly ground black pepper, and sprinkled with torn leaves off of a live basil plant from Stokes Farm, garnished on the side with a little purple micro radish from Windfall Farms; there was a small assembly of slices of small green tomatoes that had been warmed in a little olive oil inside a small copper skillet along with a few chopped seasoning peppers (aji dulce (red) and Granada, both from Eckerton Hill Farm, served on a few leaves from a small head of radicchio variegato di Castelfranco from Campo Rosso Farm; a rich local butter (Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ from Chelsea Whole Foods, and slices, untoasted, of Homadama bread (wheat, corn, water, maple syrup, salt, slaked lime) from Lost Bread Co.
• the music was Francesco Bartolomeo Conti’s 1715 ‘Missa Sancti Pauli’, György Vashegyi conducting the Orfeo Orchestra and the Purcell Choir

I think our breakfast plates actually are looking a little more minimal lately.  While this may be a desirable trend, the downside is that I might begin to lose interest in cooking eggs for breakfast if I leave little room for my imagination.

The picture below probably includes everything seen on the plate in the first one, except for the bacon, eggs and toast themselves. I snapped it for my own use, to record what was included, and so be able to write this post more easily; only much later did I decide to include it in this post.

• the ingredients included 6 fresh eggs from pastured chickens and 4 slices of bacon from pastured pigs, all from Pennsylvania’s Millport Dairy Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, the eggs, while they were being fried, seasoned with a newly-introduced local Long Island sea salt (P.E. & D.D. Seafood/Phil Karlin’s own), freshly ground black pepper, and a dry seasoning called L’ekama from Ron & Leetal Arazi’s New York Shuk, sprinkled with dill from Stokes Farm; 8 very ripe tomatoes, ‘The Best Cherry Tomatoes’ from Stokes Farm, heated gently in a small enamel-lined cast iron porringer then rolled in a French sea salt, pepper, and thin slices of scapes from Cherry Lane Farms, sprinkled with some cut spruce tips from Violet Hill Farm; a garnish of micro purple radish from Windfall Farms; and toasts of ‘Whole wheat Redeemer Bread’ (simply ‘Redeemer wheat’, water, salt) from Lost Bread Co.
• the music was assembled after my own heart, to use an expression common while I was growing up but which I didn’t quite understand until after it had virtually disappeared, the album, ‘Venecie mundi splendor: Marvels of Medieval Venice’ (“Newly recorded in the bright acoustic of the Cenacolo of San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery in Venice, La Reverdie brings together, for the first time, musical compositions written c. 1330-1430 in honor of the Venetian Doges, or Venice itself.” – excerpted notes from the album)

I haven’t been posting our Sunday breakfasts lately, but this one was something of a revelation, so I decided to include it on the site. Looking for something out of our ordinary for seasoning our usual fried eggs, I pulled down from the shelf a small bottle of gram masala that I’d purchased last fall from Bombay Emerald Chutney Company in the Saturday Chelsea’s Down to Earth Farmers Market.

What is it? The food site epicurious.com describes it as the Indian equivalent of the French herbes de Provence or Chinese five-spice powder, adding that the ingredients vary by geography or culture, as well as whim. The two words together mean ‘hot’ and ‘a mixture of spices’, and while the spelling is usually ‘garam’, in Bengali it seems to be ‘gram’.

When I chose to sprinkle some on the eggs, I knew I wouldn’t have to include much else, except salt, but, unable to restrain myself, I added some chopped fresh rosemary anyway, to introduce something fresh and green; I figured it was an herb that wouldn’t fight the spices.

My point is that the eggs were not like any others we’ve had, and really wonderful, so this post, like all of them, is published fundamentally as a reminder for myself.

• the ingredients were very fresh eggs from pastured chickens and bacon from pastured pigs, both from Millport Dairy Farm; one sliced Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomato’ from Chelsea Whole Foods Market warmed in a little house Whole Foods Portuguese olive oil; local (regional) Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ placed to the side, for the toast, also from Whole Foods Market; chopped fresh purple thyme from Philipps Farms, sprinkled on the tomatoa couple pinches of gram masala from Bombay Emerald Chutney Company; chopped fresh rosemary leaves from Whole Foods Market; Maldon salt; freshly-ground black pepper; lightly toasted slices of Pain D’Avignon‘s ‘country sourdough bread’ from Foragers Market; and micro purple radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the music was the ECM album, ‘Valentin Silvestrov: Sacred Songs’

I wasn’t even sure I’d  make bacon and eggs this past Sunday, since I had been thinking of the 2 roti from Bombay Emerald Chutney Company lying inside the freezer, but then I also remembered I had some extra fresh stuff on hand that I’d be unlikely to incorporate into anything other than an improvised plate of eggs and things.

Even then I wasn’t sure I’d post about it, until I looked at the picture I’d snapped that afternoon; I decided I’d like to both remember it and do a little sharing.

• there were small pullet eggs from pastured [green] Americauna chickens and thick slices of bacon from pastured pigs, both products of Millport Dairy Farm; local (regional) Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ from Whole Foods Market; chopped pieces of several garlic scapes from Berried Treasures Farm: a fresh yellow grenada seasoning pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm and a fresh habanada pepper from Norwich Meadows Farm, both finely chopped; shiitake mushroom stems from Bulich Mushroom Company, thinly sliced; Maldon salt; freshly-ground black pepper; tarragon from Stokes Farm; Keiths’s Farm’s collards left over from Thanksgiving dinner, with olive oil and a tiny bit more salt and pepper added; a garnish of a bit of red micro radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge; and (untoasted) slices of an earthy She Wolf Bakery toasted sesame wheat loaf
• the music was a 2-disc collection of Campra and Couperin motets, William Christie conducting is ensemble, Les Arts Florissants