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 was going to write that these were the last of the fresh habanada peppers for the season, that when I saw that they had started to go pretty fast inside the refrigerator, I had decided to splurge at our breakfast on Sunday afternoon. And then today, on my very next trip back to the Union Square Greenmarket, I found a few more in the same stand where these had come from almost a full month before.

The tomatoes too may not have been the last of the summer’s treasures: Their farmers told me they had in fact been growing inside a covered space even during the warmer months, but there can’t be many more out there except for those raised hydroponically..

The eggs will be with us all winter, as will the bacon and the bread, but for the next few months I’ll have to work a little harder to keep these plates colorful.

• the meal, which was, as usual, more of a late lunch than a breakfast, at least by the clock, included very fresh eggs from pastured chickens and bacon from pastured pigs, both from Millport Dairy Farm; one organic red tomato from Toigo Orchards; local (regional) Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ from Whole Foods Market; a small handful of fresh habanada peppers from Norwich Meadows Farm, minced; chopped fresh sorrel from Lani’s Farm on the eggs; green leek sections from Hawthorne Valley Farm, chopped, and chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge on the tomatoes; Maldon salt; freshly-ground black pepper; and both fresh and lightly toasted slices of 2 different local breads (a
  levain (organic wheat, whole wheat, and whole spelt flours) from Bread Alone and a flax seed armadillo from Bobolink Dairy and Bakery
• the music was Claudio Monteverdi’s ‘Vespro Della Beata Vergine’. William Christie conducting the Choir and Orchestra of Les Arts Florissants and Les Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse
  

It was a very good breakfast, not least for the fact that all 6 yolks survived for once.

There seemed to be a lot of bacon this time, although, because most slices were very thin, the total weight may have been about the same as usual. In any event the kitchen heard no complaints.

• there were eggs from pastured chickens and bacon from pastured pigs, both from Millport Dairy Farm; Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market; local (regional) Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’, also from Whole Foods Market; half of a fresh yellow grenada seasoning pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm; chopped fresh thyme from Keith’s Farm on the eggs and whole oregano leaves from Stokes Farm on the tomatoes; Maldon salt; freshly-ground black pepper; pea shoots from Echo Creek Farm, in our local Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market; and both fresh and toasted slices of 3 different breads (a potato levain from Runner & Stone Bakery, a She Wolf Bakery miche, and a Pain d’Avignon seven grain loaf)
• the music was an oratorial by Pietro Torri, ‘La Vanità del mondo’, first performed during Lent in 1706, at the Brussels court of the Spanish Netherlands, during the War of the Spanish Succession (I found every  piece of this description equally exciting)

Maybe it’s just the season, but without intending it, lately I seem to be coming up with almost monochromatic meals. Sometimes I don’t realize this until I’ve snapped the picture, and then of course it’s too late.

Especially before I added a rasher of bacon, the breakfast/lunch I put on the table today, while not quite limited to a single color, certainly didn’t look as parti-colored as the ones we enjoyed this summer.

Fortunately neither the eggs nor the ‘ham’ were actually green.

• the ingredients of the meal were, eggs from pastured [green] Americauna chickens and thick bacon from pastured pigs, both products of Millport Dairy Farm; local (regional) Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ from Whole Foods Market; finely-chopped pieces of a green scallion from Stokes Farm, chopped sections form one Berried Treasures green garlic scape, and a fresh green aji rico pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm; Maldon salt; freshly-ground black pepper; a pinch or so of a dry seasoning (not green) called L’ekama from Ron & Leetal Arazi’s New York Shuk; chopped green dill from Stokes Farm; and pieces cut from an organic multigrain baguette from Bread Alone, and not toasted, that, surprisingly, had survived for several days without turning green after its purchase in the Union Square Greenmarket on Friday
• the music was Handel’s ‘Music for Queen Caroline’, William Christie directing the Choir and Orchestra of Les Arts Florissants, after which we listened to the incredibly gorgeous, ethereal, ‘Missa Videte miraculum’ of Nicholas Ludford (c. 1485-c. 1557), a little-known composer of the English renaissance (with works of Tudor polyphony) who grew up during the reign of Henry VII and died on the cusp the Elizabethan age

[the second image, a cartoon used to advertise the Dr. Seuss TV series adaptation, is from Netflix]

No tomato of any kind showed up this time.

• what did: eggs from pastured Americauna chickens and thick bacon from pastured pigs, both products of Millport Dairy Farm; Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ from Whole Foods Market; finely-chopped pieces of a fresh yellow Granada pepper from Alewife Farm (not hot) and a fresh red aji rico pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, (medium spicy/hot); 3 small scallions from Keith’s Farm; Maldon salt; freshly-ground black pepper; chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm; and slices, some toasted and some not. toasts from a She Wolf Bakery a sourdough bâtard and a sturdy ‘Bolzano Miche’ (white wheat flour, spelt flour, rye flour, rye sourdough, yeast, coriander, cumin, and fennel) from Brooklyn’s Runner & Stone Bakery

• the music was chosen at least partly in response to the horrific events in Pittsburgh the day before:  Handel’s ‘Belshazzar’, an oratorial in 3 acts which premiered in 1745, in a performance by William Christie and Les Arts Florissants (“The libretto’s subject, which focuses on the decline of a once glorious society and the ephemeral nature of Empire, is especially relevant today.” – from the notes on the Amazon listing)

[image of Rembrandt’s ‘Het feestmaal van Belsazar‘ (ca. 1635-1639) from Art and the Bible]