"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

03 August 2022

Nailed.


Chef Henderson sings of breakfast ...
As you wake up in the morning and become aware of your innards and extremities you may require a late breakfast, but be careful - too late and we move into brunch territory, which is something we don't want to do. Brunch is the bastardisation of two great moments in the culinary day into a damp squib, neither one thing nor the other. Then there is the unanswered question: what do you drink with brunch? A wineless purgatory!
Continuing ...
But I've nailed my colours to the mast on this subject in the past, so let's return to breakfast and the breakfast greats. One, on a train travelling from Glasgow to London, with the view of the Lake District speeding past as you attack a brace of kippers and a glass of Guinness. It doesn't come much better (just remember the kipper-burps that stay with you a while, but nothing can be perfect). The next great breakfast: the Caffè Florian on St Mark's Square. The odd coffee, a chocolate ice-cream and a Fernet; we had to remortgage our house to pay the bill, of course, but what the hell - it's Venice. And then there was the time, many years ago, when I went to Prague with the Architectural Association before the Velvet Revolution. Wandering back to our hotel early in the morning we were met by a happy scene of folk eating freshly baked bread with coarse sea salt and drinking beer - not something you come across every day.

An editorial note: A breakfast of creamed herring on rye bread with Guinness rules!

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