Abercrombie & Feast

I love going out for breakfast.  There is something simultaneously relaxing and energizing and having your breakfast made for you in a lovely, preferably sun drenched, locale.  However, breakfast out is, for me, often fraught with peril.  You see, I don’t like eggs.

I know!  I wish so much that I could enjoy eggs.  They are a perfect package of food.  I see magazine pictures of poached eggs atop crisp salads or fried eggs leaking out of a bacon sandwich and they look gorgeous.  But I cannot eat them. 

And I have tried!  A few years back, my father and I were driving around Ireland to visit all the “relations”.  At each elderly auntie’s house a large breakfast or lunch would be prepared for us, usually involving a fried egg.  I would try one bite, then cut the rest into tiny ribbons and hide them under my toast.  Even now, at home, I make scrambled eggs for Andy a few times a month.  I try little bites, hoping that this will be the magical moment in which eggs begin to make sense to me.  Never happens. 

So this egg-aversion makes going out for brekkie a real challenge.  I dare you to try to find a yummy menu item that does not involve eggs in some fashion.  It’s hard!  I can usually get toast or yogurt and that’s about it.  Not that there is anything really wrong with toast or yogurt.  I love them both.  But they get old after a while. 

However, we’ve recently found a cafe at Bondi Beach that serves a breakfast I can fully support.  Sourdough toast, topped with a rich, creamy ricotta cheese and slices of fresh tomato.  I order it with a side of avocado because everything in this world is better with a side of avocado.  It’s a gorgeous breakfast, and one that I wanted to recreate at home.  Here are the results:

A slice of toasted ciabatta bread, a layer of ricotta cheese, tomato and avocado and the whole thing is drizzled with some nice extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of cracked pepper and coarse salt. 

I can’t really give you a recipe for this, because it’s just a matter of buying good ingredients and stacking them on top of one another.  But I do urge you to try this for brekkie just once.  It’s light but filling, rich but tangy.  A perfect way to start another egg-hating day.