Dear Friends,

After extensive study, I have finally discovered the one and only- the finest way to cook breakfast.  It’s safe to say All the World will benefit from my discovery, so upon reading this article, don’t just keep it to yourself.  Please inform your friends as well.

Here’s what you will need:

EGGS:  Any kind will do.  My method is concerned solely with technique.

BACON:  Once again, any kind will do.  In fact, it doesn’t even have to be pig bacon.  Turkey bacon, veggie bacon, emu bacon, etc., are all acceptable substitutes, especially emu bacon.

BREAD:  We all know it’s a waste of time to consider anything other than whole-grain.  7-grain is probably the best subtype of this, though you could also buy 14-grain and cut the pieces in half.

SALT:  La Baleine sea salt is great.  Baleine is French for “whale,” and should not be confused with the English baleen, the filtering structure found in the mouth of most whales.  However, I’m sure the French eat this stuff as well.

SMART BALANCE BUTTERY IMPOSTER:  I’m working on trademarking this brand name.

COFFEE:  Coffee.

Now that we have all of our ingredients, we’re ready to get to work.

First, wake up after a steady night of fasting.  I personally can fast up to ten, even twelve hours straight without breaking a sweat.  I’ve been told I sometimes sleepwalk during the night, mysteriously searching around the house for something- probably food.  But this occurrence is rare, and I usually fail to find what I’m looking for and go back to sleep.

Now that you’re awake, stumble to the kitchen and put two pans on the stove, one on high heat and one on medium.  One of the burners should not light, so use a match.  Burn the hair off your left middle-finger’s knuckle as you light it.  Once your fires are going, grease up the pans with the Buttery Imposter.  At this point, we come to our first crucial step in mastering the technique of cooking a perfect breakfast: mislaying the lid to the Buttery Imposter’s container.  Mislay it well and good, so that you cannot find it.

When your pans begin smoking, it is time to put your bacon in the pan on high heat.  Put your eggs in the pan on medium heat.  Use as many as you think you can stomach.  I recommend 3-4 chicken eggs or 1 emu egg.

Realize with ice-cold panic that you’ve forgotten to put the toast in the toaster, and now the timing’s going to be all off.  Rush over to the toaster and jam the toast in there.  Everything is going to be fine.

Be careful to not leave your eggs on the heat too long.  Stir rapidly and constantly, and don’t be afraid to take the pan off the heat.  In fact, why not take it off when you flip the bacon?  The bacon should be lightly scorched to ash by this point…  Oh, what’s the use?  You might as well just turn the bacon pan off now.

Put your eggs back on the heat.  Take a moment to contemplate why they aren’t cooking as fast as they should be.  In fact, take a moment to contemplate other things in life- the pointlessness of bumper stickers, for instance, or that checkout-girl at the Star Market with tawny hair and Tiffany blue eyes and that smile that makes you feel like you’re cozied up under three blankets by the fireplace in the dead of winter and then suddenly she winks at you and slips you her number and then you’re both getting married and it’s a July wedding on Cape Cod and she looks great in white lace and the weather is absolutely divine and her Aunt Agnes gives you Royal Doulton silverware as a wedding present…

An emu egg. Also the color of your future wife’s eyes.

But why are your eggs smoking?

Lift up the pan and find half of the lid to the Buttery Imposter’s container stuck to the bottom of it.  The other half should be stuck to the burner, in flames, the melting plastic oozing like some kind of horrible slug-monster.  Make sure to get a noseful of fumes as well.

Reach for the nearest thing at hand to put it out with… the coffee.  Whoops, you’ve forgotten to make it.  Blow on the fire until it goes out- you did it.  Though let’s be honest, it probably just finishes burning.

Finish cooking your eggs.  They should pretty much be the only thing in the kitchen that doesn’t get burned in this process.  That’s right, while all the drama was happening with the Buttery Imposter, the toast burned too.  It’s crucial to this whole process that in your haste you have forgotten to switch the toaster back from the “Bagel” setting.

Finally, plate your various foods, pour yourself a refreshing glass of water, settle down to eat in another room because the kitchen smells too awful, and enjoy.

Now, if that meal doesn’t wake you right the hell up, I don’t know what will.

————

Dashiell Lunde could be famous. Maybe. We’ll see.