Flavor Of.the Week Quotes

Breakfast! My favorite meal- and you can be so creative. I think of bowls of sparkling berries and fresh cream, baskets of Popovers and freshly squeezed orange juice, thick country bacon, hot maple syrup, panckes and French toast - even the nutty flavor of Irish oatmeal with brown sugar and cream. Breaksfast is the place I splurge with calories, then I spend the rest of the day getting them off! I love to use my prettiest table settings - crocheted placemats with lace-edged napkins and old hammered silver. And whether you are inside in front of a fire, candles burning brightly on a wintery day - or outside on a patio enjoying the morning sun - whether you are having a group of friends and family, a quiet little brunch for two, or an even quieter little brunch just for yourself, breakfast can set the mood and pace of the whole day. And Sunday is my day. Sometimes I think we get caught up in the hectic happenings of the weeks and months and we forget to take time out to relax. So one Sunday morning I decided to do things differently - now it's gotten to be a sort of ritual! This is what I do: at around 8:30 am I pull myself from my warm cocoon, fluff up the pillows and blankets and put some classical music on the stereo. Then I'm off to the kitchen, where I very calmly (so as not to wake myself up too much!) prepare my breakfast, seomthing extra nice - last week I had fresh pineapple slices wrapped in bacon and broiled, a warm croissant, hot chocolate with marshmallows and orange juice. I put it all on a tray with a cloth napkin, my book-of-the-moment and the "Travel" section of the Boston Globe and take it back to bed with me. There I spend the next two hours reading, eating and dreaming while the snowflakes swirl through the treetops outside my bedroom window. The inspiring music of Back or Vivaldi adds an exquisite elegance to the otherwise unruly scene, and I am in heaven. I found time to get in touch with myself and my life and i think this just might be a necessity! Please try it for yourself, and someone you love.

I loved the counter filled with lox, whitefish, sturgeon. Saperstein looked like a sturgeon, long, white, sharp-toothed. I marveled at the way he wielded his razor-sharp knife. Cutting a bit of translucent smoked sturgeon, you expected it to shred if you breathed on it. Manya achieved status as his sturgeon expert. She had grown up with sturgeon, a staple along the Black Sea, and she pronounced a sample too salty, too mealy from being packed in ice, too strong in flavor, or absolutely perfect. Saperstein, a purist, inevitably felt sad that his customers did not truly appreciate his top-of-the-line products. He communed with Bubby over a slice of sturgeon or belly lox as if having a religious moment. Even when bad weather kept customers away from our restaurant and we were low in cash, Bubby invested in a few slices of smoked sturgeon, not for her customers, but for our family. She could ignore lox, smoked whitefish, pickles or fresh herring, but she couldn't do without a weekly treat of sturgeon. To prove that he was a sporting man who approved of her taste, Saperstein created a cone from white paper and dropped in some caviar, which he kept in a tin secreted in a hole under the counter- God forbid during a robbery, the thieves would never discover his hiding place.