The Panera Compromise

Hello, my name is Sarah (hi Sarah) and I'm an addict. A breakfast addict.

The Panera Compromise

I LOVE breakfast, and not just in the morning!  When I was a student at ORU, the first night I was home on break, my dad would cook bacon, Layden's sausage and cheese, grits, and eggs. I would carefully construct the perfect sandwich...start with a piece of toast, smear it with strawberry jelly, layer bacon, then top it with egg. Invariably, my toast would lose structural integrity and drip eggs and strawberry jelly all over everything else. I didn't care, it was breakfast!! (Shout-out to Layden's...if you've never gotten sausage or cheese from there, you are seriously missing out!!!)

The kitchen where it all began. My grandpa (Doc) and the
Harris girls. He liked his coffee strong and his scrambled eggs juicy.

My grandparents were notorious in their breakfast ritual, and some of my fondest memories of childhood took place in their kitchen. Ma would be buttering toast, making orange juice and coffee, getting the biscuits ready. Doc would be cooking the eggs (from his chickens) and bacon. This division of labor originated because apparently Ma couldn't cook eggs to suit my grandfather, so she solved the problem by telling him just what he could do with them...fix them himself. Nothing would suit me less than a bowl of cereal at their house. I took it as a personal insult, but to get breakfast, I had to get up with the chickens, quite literally. Not hard for a little kid, as a college student, it was torture but well worth the pain.

After my grandparents passed away, we started celebrating Christmas with my mom's family, and we would go big! Deer and regular sausages, eggs in a variety of ways, bacon and cheese grits, assorted banana/spice breads, toast and rolls, breakfast casseroles, hoooweeee! We did not mess around. These breakfasts were not for the faint of heart, and would take us until the middle of the afternoon to recover.

"It's Gwaltney Bacon, fool!"

Now that my sister is in college, the breakfast food of choice is mom's french toast (different from what I cook because mom adds extra love, and occasionally/accidentally orange flavoring, which is not an approved variety.) At Christmas, mom uses eggnog, and I try to remember to bring home Challah bread, which is a combination I highly recommend to all the French toast lovers out there! Jennie also insists on Gwaltney bacon, and throws a Harris fit if any other brand makes an appearance at the house. This led to one of mom's famous breakfast sayings, "It's Gwaltney bacon, fool!" in a voice reminiscent of Mr. T. We take breakfast seriously in the Harris household.

Corn flakes? I DON'T THINK SO!!

Once, in a home decorating/breakfast fiasco, my mom accidentally lured my sister and I out of sleep using a cinnamon bun candle, which just happened to smell exactly like French toast. Rioting ensued, and mom was forced to make an unplanned batch of French toast. Don't mess with hungry, angry, sleepy, tricked Harris girls. We do not negotiate.


So, here I am, sitting in Panera at Tyson's Corner at 7:30 on a Thursday morning (this in itself is a crazy scenario, but driving a friend to the airport is a sacred duty, and I get to eat breakfast out, which is a real treat.) As I sat and looked at my bacon, egg and cheese on ciabatta, I was thinking about the role breakfast has played in my life. I know, deep. But very delicious. I was planning on writing about breakfast today anyway, but I think the above is a more accurate portrayal of my heart and my feelings about these favorite foods.

Here's a quick look at what you WOULD have seen had I written what I planned:

Getting a good, healthy breakfast is more quick and easy than most people think. Hey, look what I did in about 5 minutes, and it's all transportable. And in case you're wondering, that is an egg-white omelet only because I used the yolks the night before in rice pudding. Waste not, want not. Also featured in case you were wondering: Granola with dried cranberries and organic vanilla yogurt, skim milk, white tea.

Healthy alternative to Layden's. But if you get the chance,
go with Laden's. You can run it off later.

Wise words from MT.