I’ve been back from Turkey almost two weeks now and I’m still in vacation withdrawal. I miss walking down unfamiliar streets, having my daily soundtrack be an unknown language and every face being someone completely new. My stomach is also in withdrawal, especially as my vacation eating is usually double the caloric value of my everyday eating. Walking everywhere means my skinny jeans still fit, but now I unfortunately feel like I’m on a diet.

Breakfast turned out to be one of the most unexpectedly delicious occasions while there, and whether on my own or eating the free hotel spread, I was never disappointed. Especially because I made sure to fill up as much as I could to fuel my feet for most of the day.  That means trying everything.

First and foremost, you don’t drink coffee with breakfast. The rich, sweet joy that is Turkish coffee happens after. During your meal (and for any other moment of the day for that matter), you drink tea. Strong, black tea in little glass cups. With sugar. As a change of pace one day, I also tried the more wintry drink of salep.

All meals come with bread. All types of bread. From basic French to fluffy pita, it’s always fresh and always ready to accompany the many Turkish treats that come at breakfast. Oh and simit often appears, that sesame not-quite-a-bagel baked good. Simit vendors can be found on every corner and they call out to you when you have hunger pains in the afternoon. But, be warned. A simit sitting too long is a simit only worth looking at. I learned my lesson after two bites and vowed to seek out one at a bakery to check the difference. There was a huge one, and it’s left me wondering what I ever saw in bagels.

For the savoury bites, you’ve got olives, tomatoes, cucumber, pastirma and a basic white cheese called peynir. A favoured egg dish is called menemen, which is scrambled eggs with tomatoes, peppers and spices served in the hot dish it is cooked in.  Always slightly runny, menemen is perfect for dragging some fresh bread through. A place I frequented regularly in Istanbul specializes in the breakfast foods of the Turkish province of Van. Their “Van Breakfast Plate” came with, as you can see, five different cheeses, Turkish cacik (tzatziki) and bal kaymak.

Bal kaymak. Sometimes I think I went to Turkey just to eat bal kaymak, or honey and clotted cream. Thicker than the Devonshire cream we’re familiar with here, Turkish clotted cream thickly spread over bread and then drizzled with honey is what I want to eat for my last meal. That fat and sugar were the magic ingredients for keep me going and going and going all day on the streets of busy Istanbul. When I think about it now and realize I might never have it again, I start to well up a little. One proprietor even showed me camera phone pictures of the buffalo where the cream came from the day before. LE sigh.

For the sweet side of breakfast, you had your choice of jams and honeys, fruit and maybe some cake. At one favourite hotel, the homemade jams put every place EVER to shame. That’s 15 in the picture, but there were four more “special” ones that you got to sample on one of your mornings. The lavender still lingers on my tongue when I think *really* hard.

Menemen and Bal Kaymak

Strong tea, crusty bread, white butter and bal kaymak.

OMG. The most amazing simit.

Jam selections don't get better than this.

Salep

A little bit of liquid perfection.

My love affair with breakfast started as a wee toddler with a hankering for pancakes. My annual Saturday morning ritual at the age of five was to rise and shine bright and early to watch the Little Rascals under the protection of my little satin trimmed yellow blanket, which was always followed by making pancakes. With parents still asleep, I would haul out the Aunt Jemima, push a chair up to the stove, and get cooking. How hard could it be really? In no time at all I was a fully independent pancake maker…except for the time that somehow I managed to produce a blue pancake product, they were pretty good for a toddler. No more Aunt Jemima for me. Now my weekend carb fix is all about the stuffed French Toast and perfect buttery pancakes.

Carbohydrate number one goes something like this with two variations….

Banana Brie French Toast & Ham Gruyere French Toast

2 eggs

2 Tbsp whole milk

8 thick slices of French bread

1 sliced banana or pear (as pictured) if you prefer

4 slices of brie

4 slices of Swiss Gruyere

4 slices of Tuscan ham

maple syrup

Lightly beat eggs and milk in a shallow dish. Set aside.

Cut a slit in the French bread slices as though you were slicing them into thinner slices, but don’t cut all the way through. Stuff half of the slices with a layer of bananas and brie, and stuff the other half with the Swiss Gruyere and Tuscan Ham.

Heat a cast iron pan or griddle to medium/high. Lightly dip both sides of each piece of French Bread and place on hot buttered grill one by one. Flip when golden brown and serve with maple syrup for the sweet version, and Dijon mustard for the salty version.

Carbohydrate number two is courtesy of my friend, and brilliant artist, Dana Holst. A fellow connoisseur of the pancake, we talked about the attributes of the little fluffy pan treats. We reviewed density (can’t be too heavy), crispiness (has to have a little crunch along the delicate edges), fluffiness which is of course essential, and memories of pancakes from days gone by made by the hands of women we love. So when Dana told me she had discovered the perfect recipe for a light, fluffy, crisp, thin pancake, I was thrilled. She was right. Sunday morning perfection!

Dana’s Pancakes

1 ½ cups flour (wholewheat if you want)

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp baking powder

2 eggs separated

1 2/3 cups milk

¼  cups canola oil

Butter for cooking

Sift dry ingredients together.  Blend egg yolks, milk and oil well in a blender.  Beat egg whites until stiff in separate bowl.  Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just mixed and still lumpy.  Gently fold in egg whites until just mixed.  Cook in butter, on medium/high heat. Butter and syrup….yum!

Now keep those PJs on and get cooking already. I won’t tell…..

Oh wait, you can if that brunch is homemade.  Check.

And you can if that brunch is made by Sugar.  Check.

When your plate looks like the following, there’s nothing left to do but smile, pick up your knife and fork, and dig in.

The bliss that comes from eating such food confirms why breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

A high from sugar, white flour, cheese, pork, butter, pork and butter fat, alcohol, and caffeine is the stuff of legend.

So, what’s that red stuff on the plate?

Overheard:  Fruit at breakfast is like green vegetables at Thanksgiving.

An unnecessary reminder that you’re not being as good as you could be in the health department.

That’s where the Barefoot Contessa comes in.  Like many contemporary chefs, she’s not shy of adding a little richness to her fruit and veg.

For Easter brunch, I made our fruit fat (read: delicious) by making her mascarpone fruit dip.  It was like melted vanilla ice cream.  Rich, but not crazy-rich like whipped cream.  Not too sweet.  Just perfect.

Mascarpone Fruit Dip

1 small tub (around 250 g) of mascarpone cheese

2 tablespoons of honey

Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Seeds from one vanilla bean

Mix—you can thin with cream if you like.

Then, serve.

Lastly, enjoy.

At her house we would watch Purple Rain for the hundredth time, watch her brother play with his Star Wars figurines, dress up our Cabbage Patch dolls, and stay up way too late until we were too giddy to sleep, and in the morning Lino, her lovely father, would make us breakfast. Now with a young palette that had not been readily exposed the sharp Italian cheese, zesty Italian sausage, and other such savory delights for breakfast, I was not so sure about the special breakfast he made for me the first time: frittata. Loaded with Italian sausage, asparagus, parmigiano, and fresh herbs, it was a tad sophisticated for my not yet sophisticated taste buds, but as a wee shy thing, I said it was delicious when asked. So every single time I stayed over after that, it was frittata just for me! I learned to love it, and of course now, I can’t get enough of its savory fillings and light fluffy goodness. I think of Lino every time I scavenge the refrigerator to  throw together the eggy delight.

Boxing day morning, with ham, green onion, fresh basil, parmigiano, aged cheddar and a touch of truffle oil, it was frittata time. The beauty of the dish is that it is well adapted to whatever you have in the refrigerator for a lovely morning treat. I often use Italian sausage, prosciutto, spinach, arugula, roasted pepper, and of course any cheese I can find. Today’s went something like this….

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Heat a small non-stick pan (that can go straight into the oven) with a touch of olive oil on medium/high. Add a handful of diced ham, 2 finely sliced green onions, and saute. Add whisked egg mixture of 4 eggs, salt, freshly cracked pepper, torn basil leaves, drizzle of truffle oil, freshly grated parmigiano and aged cheddar to the pan, lifting the edges with a spatula to allow the uncooked eggs to flow to the bottom.  When the frittata is partly cooked (2 to 3 minutes), transfer the pan to the oven. Bake until puffed, golden, and set, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove and allow to cool slightly. This serves two perfectly with a little rye toast and some fresh pear on the side. Perfetto!