breakfast blogger

This weekend we cooked up a real Jewish Montreal Breakfast.

Of course, when I use the term “Jewish Montreal”, I really mean to say ‘Hypocrydox’, which is the type of Judiasm that I, and most Montreal Jews, and quite possibly most North American Jews, tend to practice. We celebrate Hannukah by eating latkes and lighting candles for eight nights (except for when we go for Chinese food - another Jewish favorite), but we also happen to put cheese into our omeletes that may or may not contain salami. Of course, to make up for this transgression, we fast on Yom Kippur and are absolved for all of our sins - a lovely tradition.

I started out by sautéeing some diced onions until they were soft and transluscent, and then adding some boiled potatoes. Luckily, I had both of the diced onions and some boiled potatoes leftover from my turkey-pot-pie session the previous night, which I will eventually post on a website that is not fascistly breakfast-centric.

I then diced up some kosher salami. I am using the ‘Hebrew National’ brand of salami, which incidentally, is not kosher in Montreal. It is kosher in New York, as far as I know, and even in a few other places, but not in Montreal. This particular brand of salami, which I judiciously selected due to the fact that it was the only salami in my parents refrigerator when I raided it a few days earlier, is not certified by the Montreal Vad, which is the organization that charges exorbitant fees for kosher certification in the Montreal area. Fortunately, being a Hypocrydox Jew, I am allowed to eat this type of salami and still have the honor and privilege of being inscribed, and sealed, in the book of a happy life after abstaining from food for 25 hours every October.

While the salami is blissfully frying, and consequently secreting beef fat into my onions and potatoes, I crack and beat a few eggs. I like to use 5 eggs for a two person scramble to guarantee that each of us ends up with at least 2 whole eggs on our plates.

Once the salami bits are nicely browned on the edges, I pour in the eggs, which I have not slated due to the fact that thew salami has quite a bit of salt in it - I will salt to taste at table.

Let it sit for about 30-45 seconds, to let the egg start cooking. Once the egg mixture has begun to set, I start mixing it with a wooden spoon or some other such utensil. I’m sure even a pencil will do the trick. At some point, I added a heap of grated Parmeggiano-Reggiano.

I toasted our toast, challah - also part of the bounty from my raid on the family kitchen- and sliced up some greenhouse cherry tomatoes. I am trying to eat as locally as possible, so I am abstaining from buying tomatoes from California or Mexico or Pluto - have they started farming that yet? Maybe that’s why it lost its’ status as a planet….

Last year I didn’t buy any tomatoes in the winter as I was so endeared to the ones I grew myslef, as well as the ones that arrived in my weekly organic vegetable basket from La Ferme Cadet-Roussel. This year I already miss tomatoes so much that I will try the greeenhouse varieties, but I know I will be dissatisfied. You can’t have it all.

Now you see it:

Now you don’t:

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Breakfasts, Montreal, Recipes, Spanky's Recipes, Spanky's Breakfasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.