I am not a good cook, but my Walter is. He is my personal chef and feeds me well. He also does most of the grocery shopping, which makes me twice as happy.

We are not early risers because we are night owls, so our main meal of the day is brunch. Not only is it scrumptious, but Walter also creates beautiful plates of breakfast delicacies. Our daily fruit bowl is my favorite:

Spoon 2 tablespoons of applesauce into a small bowl.
Add ½ of a sliced banana (and eat the rest).
Add about 3 cut-up strawberries.
Add 10 or 12 blueberries.
Top off with a few blackberries or raspberries.
The final touch is a generous drizzling of honey.
Chill in the fridge until it’s time to eat. YUM!

Both of us love eggs, so they often appear on our plates in all forms: poached, fried, boiled, as an omelet, on a tomato and egg sandwich, or scrambled. After watching many YouTube videos, Walter has perfected his scrambled eggs. He says the key to fluffy eggs is to “stay with them.” Once you have beaten your eggs with salt, pepper, and a pinch of milk, pour them into a preheated frying pan on medium heat—no hotter. Be patient and allow the eggs to start cooking and firm up. With a spatula, begin to fold them into themselves so the runny part flows around the partially cooked portion. Continue folding until all the eggs are cooked and fluffy. Pile them up in the middle of the pan, turn the burner to low, and let them sit a few minutes while you set the table. Ta da! Delicious, scrambled eggs.

Another egg option is poached eggs on toast topped with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese. Add peeled, cored, and sliced homegrown tomatoes to the plate for color and variety. If you like avocados, cut one in half, remove the pit, and fill the center of each half with a generous spoonful of Daisy Cottage Cheese. The blend of flavors is delightful.

Of course, any eggs can be accompanied by breakfast sausage, links or patties, or bacon—who doesn’t like bacon? Another option is homemade corned beef hash. Walter starts with coarsely chopped onions in a frying pan lightly rubbed with bacon grease. Once the onions have softened, he adds a block of canned corned beef, gently rinsed off to reduce the salt content. After breaking up the corned beef in the pan, he drains two cans of diced skin-on yellow potatoes and folds them into the corned beef and onions. He peppers to taste, adds no additional salt, and sneaks in a few red pepper flakes, but not too many, or I will fuss at him. Heat through on medium-low to keep the corned beef soft, and it’s ready to serve in twenty minutes.        

An occasional treat for us is golden pancakes. Walter makes our pancakes the easy way—a boxed mix, preferably a just-add-water mix. Topped with butter, fruit, maple syrup, and a dab of whipped cream, this dish satisfies my sweet tooth for the entire day.

Chilly weather brings a hot bowl of oatmeal to the table, reminding me of my childhood in Wisconsin. Walter’s favorite cold-weather brunch is biscuits and gravy. He does not make biscuits from scratch. Instead, he pops open a can of buttermilk jumbo biscuits. He preheats the oven to 325 degrees, less than the can recommends, places the rounds of dough on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper to keep them from sticking, and bakes them for 22 minutes, turning the pan halfway through.

Walter used to make gravy from scratch but discovered a tasty shortcut. After browning the breakfast sausage in a frying pan and patting it with paper towels to degrease it, he mixes up a packet of Pioneer Country Sausage Gravy Mix and adds it to the fried sausage with a little extra water to keep it from getting too thick while cooking. No extra seasoning is needed. I must admit, a plate of hot biscuits and gravy on a cold winter day is the best comfort food ever!

When we splurge on any of these brunch extravaganzas, we skip lunch and end the day with a light dinner.

If we have an appointment or are heading out for the day, we may eat a bowl of cereal, and our fruit bowl is replaced by sliced bananas and strawberries on top of our Rice Krispies mixed with bran flakes. At times, we forego fixing breakfast at home and stop at Bojangles on our way out of town to grab a chicken biscuit to go with our morning coffee. 

Happy brunch to everyone—the best way to start the day.