Breakfast Then and Now

One of the things that initially attracted my husband and me was our love of cooking and eating.  The contrast of the breakfast we cooked today to that we cooked almost 40 years ago was amusing!

He introduced me to Jewish foods and cooking I had never encountered in the South.  I learned about the marvels of schmaltz and we found ways to use it liberally.  In 1973 our breakfast menu might have been something like:

-- Eggs Benedict made with either smoked lox or breaded veal scallopini cooked in schmaltz and topped with Hollandaise sauce

-- Broiled tomatoes

-- Hash browns probably with some schmaltz as well

-- Strong coffee

Today’s breakfast was just a little healthier:

-- Sectioned grapefruit and orange

-- Poached eggs with a sprinkle of sea salt

-- Hash browns cooked in a little olive oil

-- Multi-grain toast with nothing on it

-- Green tea

We still share the cooking responsibilities, but we both have modified our diets.  There is no more schmaltz in our refrigerator.  Instead olive oil seems to be our choice for all things sauteed.  We greatly limit our coffee intake.

As we sat reading the Post and the NY Times after breakfast, I noted it was the same bad news of 40 years ago, just another administration. We had traded in Nixon for Obama.