I love it when I meet someone and learn about their food preferences. It usually catches them off guard when I see something new and mid-conversation yelp “Oh my god, that is amazing” and whip out my camera to capture the moment. It gets really good, for example, when I do it during a business meeting.
Like when I had a 9:00am breakfast meeting off-site last week. My day started at 6:00am and I knew I wouldn’t make it for three hours without eating. I was in the mood for Dunkin Donuts. (shocker) After driving to three different locations, I finally found one with a drive up window (this is sad and makes me sound pathetic but it was really, really cold out and I had time to kill) I ordered my favorite indulgent breakfast combo; light and sweet coffee and a wheat bagel with light veggie cream cheese. (And for future reference, the store with a drive up window is the new Baskin Robbins and DD combo next to the Giant in West Chester.)
By the time 9:00am rolled around I already had a good caffeine buzz going and my hunger was subdued. We were meeting at my favorite place, Market Street Grill, where I usually order a veggie-packed omelet. On this day, however, I decided I wanted a poached egg. Just one… and some fruit. This raised some eyebrows. It was either the fact that I ordered just a single egg or that I had just taken a picture of a cup of coffee with whipped cream in it.
I was inspired to order poached eggs (and by eggs I mean egg) by a gentleman named Ed at the table who ordered two poached eggs in a cup and wheat toast. I asked why he got them in a cup and he said it was because he likes to mush them in the cup to dip the toast in it. I was intrigued. I had my camera ready.
I learned that there are two stages in preparing this dish once it arrives at the table. First Ed took an insane amount of salt and pepper and coated his eggs. Then he mashed them up, allowing the bold yellow yolks to blend into a delicious egg mixture. And then he delicately spread it on his toast. I photographed both stages and secretly wanted to eat his breakfast.
Instead, I munched on my egg. It was hard to not eat it very quickly as my fellow diners had omelets and such. I nursed my single portion and happily ate the fresh fruit from it’s cup.
We continued discussing work related issues but I was still stuck on the huge amount of pepper on this guys eggs and the fact that the guy next to him killed two birds with a stone by using whipped cream to lighted and sweeten his coffee. So cool.
The Final Dish: “It’s the little things with you isn’t it?” Said to me at breakfast.
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