The 50-50

Ingredients: peanut butter, fruit preserves (raspberry, by far the best), Nutella, bread

Step One: Lay out ingredients on your stove in a appealing manner.


Step Two: Apply a healthy dose of peanut butter to one piece of the bread, then apply an equally healthy dose of Nutella to the other.


Step Three: Apply liberal dollop of fruit preserves to the peanut buttered piece of bread (yes, this matters. Doubts? Go ahead and try putting the preserves on the Nutella, just don't complain to me when your sandwich is ruined). It helps to kind of stir up the preserves a bit in the jar, so they're easier to spread once they make contact with the bread.


Step Four: Seal the pieces together. This should feel very satisfying, especially if you were extra careful to line up the slices of bread.


Oh big deal, you might think. It's just a regular pbj with Nutella. Negative. A true pbj requires peanut butter on both pieces of bread. To simply add Nutella to that would be a disaster--the sandwich would be too thick and the luscious taste of the Nutella would be drown out by an overwhelming ocean of peanut butter. No, The 50-50 is calculated to give you the best mixture of the three ingredients, letting them each shine under their own spotlight before joining together center stage for the chorus line. Or something to that effect...

Breakfast Revolution

It has been some time since the last update, and in that some time much has changed. For me anyway. And only really from a culinary standpoint. Specifically, breakfast. I used to be a bagel and cereal guy, through and through. Onion bagel, strawberry cream cheese. Crispix, Rice Crispies, Honey Nut Cheerios, Special K. Those days are over. A revolution has swept the desolate land that was my kitchen and with it a new menu has usurped the old. Behold, the Triangle of Power:
(note: due to a poor understanding of page format, the Triangle of Power will not be visually represented by an actual triangle. Instead, it's more of a three-point-column-of-power. Or something like that.)

Yogurt + Fruit + Cereal

For the yogurt, I go with a rotation of vanilla, blueberry, and a wild card (usually raspberry or strawberry, sometimes black cherry). For the fruit, it's always strawberries and usually blueberries with an occasional appearance by raspberries. For the cereal, mostly I choose Grape Nuts (or the Safeway brand, which is cheaper and better), though sometimes I opt for granola or some other random cereals. The key is to add some crunch, to vary the texture. Also, if I'm feeling saucy, I'll dollop (more like drown) on some honey.

English Muffin + Poached or Scrambled Egg + Half Avocado

The English Muffin (toasted, of course) is an oft-overlooked breakfast staple. Not as calorically dense as a bagel, it still satisfies that need for breakfast bread. And they make me feel like I'm English, which is cool. The egg (usually poached, thanks to this) adds a good dose of protein, and, when poached and placed on an English Muffin, brings a lot of class to the breakfast hour. The avocado, of course, adds color and mixes well with the egg.

Nutella + Toast

Quickly becoming the essential ingredient for breakfast. Nutella is amazing. Seriously. It's so amazing it deserves another picture, right here:

Seriously, how can you not want to slather this magnificent substance over every edible surface? But, yes, some Nutella smeared over a crispy piece of toast. Simple, but I challenge you to find something as effective as this for a sweet counterpoint to any breakfast. That was a rhetorical challenge, though.

So, in lieu of the ol' bagel'n'cereal routine, each morning I pick two of the three elements from the Triangle of Power and enjoy a magnificent morning feast. Though sometimes, every now and then, I have all three. And just like that, my day is successful before I leave home.