After spending an hour or two with Julia Child on YouTube and enjoying her “elegance” with eggs, how could I not want to engage in an eggs-travagant encounter of my own for Sunday brunch?
The beauty of brunch, of course, is that you can linger with friends or family, savor a small feast of your favorite breakfast foods at midday, and do so (relatively) guilt-free.
As for yours truly, gone are the days when I eggs-ceeded reasonable rations of potentially heart-stopping helpings of my fave foods, however heavenly in their presentation or preparation.
And yet… I marvel at memories of Manhattan weekends with friends many moons ago. It was all very Sex and the City (with little of the former and plenty of the latter), dishing over our days and dreams, not to mention sumptuous samplings of pleasures for the palate.
The Origins of Brunch
In case you’re wondering about the bodacious beginnings of bountiful brunching, Smithsonian Magazine offers its options on the origins of this fabulous fare, noting that:
… Some food historians think that the meal has its roots in England’s hunt breakfasts — lavish multi-course meals that featured a smorgasbord of goodies such as chicken livers, eggs, meats, bacon, fresh fruit and sweets.
Citing other possibilities that date to the 1930s and earlier (a reference in print in 1895), there is no doubt that we enjoy our weekend indulgence in a more lavish spread, with no need for a hunt afterward other than a place to recover from too many Mimosas…
Favorite Breakfast and Brunch Foods?
On my list of tasty treats are the classics: Eggs Benedict, bagels, lox, waffles, and for those of us with kiddos, particularly during prime parenting years, piles of pancakes.
As for the teenage habit of consuming cold pizza on Sunday, I throw my hands up in the air and defer to a Shakespearean Sonnet on this slippery subject.
As we come of age, we may find ourselves eggs-traordinarily egg-static at the “elegance” of eggs to which legendary chef Julia Child pays particular homage.
Eggs-uberance!
Eggs-tremely eggs-cited to egg-stract my meals from the mundane muffin to which I have too readily become accustomed, I deferred my usual to something more eggs-emplary.
While I still struggle to synthesize the subtleties of the perfect poached egg – and I remain a fan of eggs over easy with a sprinkle of pepper and a flourish of delicate dill – on a lazy Sunday après-midi, an obscenely oversize omelet filled with veggies can hit the spot.
This eggs-periment? It was about technique as much as anything, having viewed various videos of the irrepressible Julia Child. That said, with a nod to my son who makes the best omelets on the planet, in this instance, the eggs-ecution was handled by a visiting French chef in the neighborhood (go figure…). Would I have dared to tell him “va te faire cuire un oeuf” at the offer to man my burners? Instead, ought I to eggs-press that brunch was “oeuf”-orique?
Eggs-tacy. Really.
This lovely omelet was filled with red and yellow bell peppers, sautéed mushrooms, red onion, Roma tomatoes, topped with light sour cream and parsley.
Eggs-ceptional!
Do enjoy Julia Child at in these clips and the results from my less well-equipped by otherwise eggs-uberant cuisine.
And from my table (to Julia’s) to yours… Bon Appétit!
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When I tell him “va te faire cuire un oeuf” – he does. And then some!
Thank goodness he only knows the literal sense of this French expression. Ha, ha.
I will end with a bilingual joke:
Why do they only eat one egg for breakfast in France? Because one egg is an oeuf.
(Stop it. I can hear you groaning all the way from Canada!)
Yum…all my favorite ingredients folded into that omelette! Haven’t made one of them in a very long time…thanks for the reminder! 🙂
Brunch is my absolute favorite. On weekends, it feels like such a luxury. Our brunch menu: scrambled eggs, scones and waffles. To add a healthy twist into the mix, our drink of choice: a green smoothie.