Louisa Enright's Blog

Turkey Tracks:  June 4, 2016

Saturday Breakfast

We are (again) being promised rain for later tonight and tomorrow.

So far, my rain dances have not worked.  Maybe this time.

Anyway, I mowed last Friday, so I knew I had to mow before we got soaking rain that might take several days.  Often, that means a third day for my grass to dry out enough to mow.

So…

Yep.  I needed to mow TODAY.

At first we had overcast cool, then, suddenly, in the way weather happens in Maine, the skies cleared and the sun came out and it started getting warm enough to dry up the morning dew.

First though, I fixed myself a “Saturday Breakfast.”  Normally I don’t get hungry until nearly noon.  But today I needed to be mowing around noon, AND I am having dinner early evening with friends at Chez Michel’s in Lincolnville, Maine–just up the road from Camden and across from Lincolnville beach.  Somehow, I’ve never been to this restaurant, so when friends discovered I had not, an outing was organized.  (I have great friends.)  

Over a cup of tea, I pondered what to eat for breakfast.

My tea:  I get the most extraordinary Irish tea from our local coops.  It’s from a Vermont company and comes in little grains.  It makes a “bold” cup of tea.

I heat the water in my copper kettle, and say what you will, water heated in that kettle tastes gorgeous–very unlike water heated in another pot.  I’ve had it for 25 or so years now and love it to pieces.

I pour hot water over the loose tea through a basket thingy

that fits over my cup.

This tea can take a second pour over too, which I usually do sometime during the day.

Of course I add LOCAL raw WHOLE milk from Jersey cows (Milkhouse milk) and about a tablespoon of raw, UNHEATED local honey–which I get in big jars once a year from my local beekeeper, Sparky’s Honey.  I take him the jars, and he fills them.

On the refill, I don’t add the honey.

OK, chives are in full bloom, so I snipped some and brought in one of the lavender chive blooms to crumble into my eggs.

Over the years, the chives have spread in my garden.  And look at the stand of tarragon to the right of the big clump of chives.  Along this path I have several types of sage, several types of thyme, my grandmother’s mint (which I’ve had for over 40 years), some garlic chive (blooms in August), lavender, and some rosemary.  I LOVE it when I have herbs in the garden.

I recently learned that one can trim the chives back to to or three inches in mid-summer, and they will grow back up and, often, bloom again.

I put a big pat of local raw butter in the pan and heated it until it sizzled.  Threw in the chives and dropped in two eggs.  While they set a bit, I hit them with local sea salt and some black pepper.

I just take a fork and run it through eggs to scramble them.  If I were to add cheese, it would be just as they are broken but still runny.

I had some gluten-free bread from HootinTootin bakery out of, I think, Belfast.  I get it at the Belfast Coop.   AND some homemade blackberry jam.  (This year will be a blackberry year.  Last year the patch had to be cut down to allow it to regenerate without so many weeds.)

Delicious!  And the mowing seemed really easy after this good start.