Saucyman: BRINNER or DIFAST

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

BRINNER or DIFAST

Breakfast foods for dinner, dinner foods for breakfast? Any opinions? – Why must we label things?

Breakfast can say it is the most important meal of the day all it wants, but I’ve never felt that way - 2 cups of coffee, some yogurt and a piece of fruit is my usual morning fueling.

Because I harbor a certain degree of animus towards breakfast and traditional breakfast foods, when I do eat before noon, I’d be more inclined to lean towards dinner foods for breakfast – particularly left Chinese or Thai takeout. Pizza in the morning is good, but it is pretty rare that nighttime’s pizza lives to see the next morning – Dinner for breakfast is preferred more than going out a traditional egg and bacon type of breakfast or staying in for cereal - I have had leftover noodles straight out of the carton minutes after waking up - I am not one to stand on ceremony before noon - and I’ll do it again.

Cereal for breakfast is odd not only to me but to members of the world’s largest democracy. While my views are pretty intractable, after about a decade in the subcontinent, Indians are finally starting to embrace American style breakfast foods. When first introduced, companies thought the cereals would be a winner in the milk loving culture. Despite a large marketing push, the people of Indian sensibly chose samosas to Wheaties. After 10 years of advertising, younger Indians with more disposable income have taken a shine to boxed breakfast – Oh, and the manufacturers reformulated cereal so it wouldn’t become soggy in the warm milk that is a culturally preferred.

A few friends love cereal for dinner – it is quick and easy and only a bowl and spoon remain to be washed, not something I can say about even my quick and easy dinners. Other friends like the pancake dinner nay, love pancakes for dinner. Again, being a little wary of starting a day with starchy, syrupy insulin spike that is the shortstack, but I confess to liking the pancake dinner – hot sauce instead of maple syrup, it was pretty cool. Pancakes by a different name – blini or crepes would provide some culinary cover for this meal, but I enjoyed the chicken pancake.

The thing that always surprises me is that I don’t have more egg dinners. Unless you count aioli or Caesar Dressing as an egg dinner. Elizabeth David titled a book an Omelette (She was English -with their superfluous o & u s) and a Glass of Wine. There are frittatas, baked eggs and poached eggs to be spooned over greens and polenta – Judith Jones has a picture of a mighty good looking soufflé on the cover of her The Pleasures of Cooking for One – there are fittingly about a dozen egg recipes in her book. Cheese soufflé and a small salad, now there is a meal I could have for either dinner or breakfast.

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Basketball

Since the lockout ended, I have been largely silent about the great sport of basketball. Despite Brandon Roy retiring, despite my beloved Blazer’s sprint out of the blocks to a really good start, despite my home team playing a style of basketball than can no longer be described as Van Gundying (Jeff) up the sport’s fluidity.

I don’t know, some interesting developments transpired: During the lockout, analysts and beat writers, the very people who possibly think about professional basketball more than I do, had a light bulb go on over their collective heads and across the league they discovered what everyone else pretty much already knew, NBA Commissioner David Stern is a dick. Over the last decade Stern forced bankrupt municipalities to build new stadiums for billionaires’ new play thing, this heavy handed behavior garnered nothing but praise. The writers sighed and thought eh, “we live in the suburbs, we write for suburban middle managers, our values are if anything anti-urban” - with all the weight that word carries. But needlessly locking out players jeopardizing their tenuous employment in publishing, well that is something that we might complain about except they hate the players more - Oh the conflict.

But mostly I can’t get excited about any team helmed by Nate McMillan. We’ll make the playoffs with a pretty good but not best record, maybe get home court advantage in the first round and then fail to advance. This is true until McMillan proves otherwise, 11 years a coach out of the first round once - this record while coaching some pretty good but not great teams. Along the way Nate will overplay star forwards LaMarcus Aldridge and Gerald Wallace so there is nothing in the tank come playoff time and risk their health. And yo-yo Nicholas Batum’s minutes so the young player becomes a head case instead of developing into a consistent contributor.

So a predictable finish is part of the my own jejune response to the return of the sport of kings (not really, that's horse racing) maybe it's the sweet science (damnit google says that's boxing). My attitude goes deeper than a finish more predictable than one of McMillan's earth toned, triple pleated suits, if the lockout exposed a fault line in NBA coverage it's that broadcasters and writers are now PR agents for the teams - so who is left to advocate for the fan - thank goodness for blogs and the posting cyborg that is named Henry Abbott.

2nd round or bust