Breakfast from Heaven

Well, as I said, September is moving month. I’ve been in my new apartment for about a week now, and I’m still getting used to it. As I wrote to myself in my journal last night, it takes me a long time to get used to new places. I remember being much more adaptable when I was younger. On the whole, though, the apartment is working out. My roommate is very kind and considerate (though cluttered!) and certainly a better cook than I am. My room is wide and white, with a bay window and a startling resemblance to my much beloved senior year dorm room. The ceilings are high. The floors are creaky. The neighborhood is quiet enough to sleep with my windows open. The oven is new. The kitchen counter is one long block of wood.

One of my first acts was to rearrange the kitchen to accommodate my dishes and pots and pans and glasses, etc. My roommate, who had been napping, said it was like “I fell asleep and Martha Stewart visited the apartment!” Now, I’m certainly no Martha Stewart—and I’m certain that, say, Courtney could rearrange this place better than I did—but its nice praise nonetheless. There’s certainly more space in the kitchen and it’s feels like a real kitchen, instead of the “kitchen side” of the studio apartment.

In addition to high ceilings and low rent, there is at least one other distinct advantage: right next door to Clark Park, home of my favorite farmer’s market in the city (to be fair, I haven’t been to the ones on the eastern side of the city, except for Reading Terminal. Any suggestions, readers?) On Saturday morning, my darling GF and I ambled over in search of fresh vegetables and eggs and perhaps something for breakfast. For a total cost of about $15, we got: 5 late season peaches, 2 late tomatoes, 3 peppers of various size and colors, 1 dozen fresh organic eggs, a loaf of fresh baked baguette bread, and a quarter pound of organic arugula.

By this time, I had been awake for at least 3 hours, and was jittery from hunger and one too many cups of strong tea. We looked at our bounty and decided that we should probably take advantage of it then and there. Out came a handful of arugula, four eggs, and four slices of that soft, fresh bread. The bread, laden with slices of sharp cheddar cheese, went into the toaster, while the eggs got broken and then fried in the skillet. Then we layered: the arugula, with pepper and salt, over the cheese, then an egg on top of both slices, to make an open-faced breakfast sandwich.

Maybe it was hunger—more likely it was the peppery bite of the arugula mixed with the smooth sublimity of truly fresh eggs atop bread that was obviously made by the gods for the gods as an accompaniment for their ambrosia. This was the best breakfast sandwich that I have ever had.