There are some mornings that call for old favorites and some old favorites that need a little updating. I like toad-in-the-hole. Its basically toast with an over easy egg cooked in the middle. Then when you cut into it, the warm yolk mixes with the crispy toast. Oh. So. Good.

My minor complaint with toad is that there never seemed to be quite enough eggy goodness to go with the toast. My second minor complaint is where did the little round dots go that were once the bread?

So on the stovetop, I heated up one of those two-burner skillets til it smoked a little, dropped on a bit of water to bring the temperature down a little and let it steam up my kitchen. After the water bubbled off, put 4 strips of a very nice, fatty bacon down and watch the fat render. You will be using that fat, so do not remove it. Get your loaf of sourdough out and cut yourself a slice about 3/4 of an inch thick. Then get the biscuit cutter and cut two evenly spaced holes in your bread. Save the holes. Round toast is awesome. Once your bacon is about done, remove it from the griddle and drain off the fat on some kitchen paper. Place your holey bread on the griddle wherever the fat is still sitting and let the bread toast up a bit. Put the holes down there too. Now get your 2 eggs, and crack them one at a time on the flat of the counter. Cracking on the corner drives shells into your eggs and nobody likes to crunch down on a shell when in mid-nom-nom. Put the eggs in the holey bread. When the eggs are about cooked through, get your spatula and maybe a second one if that bread is really wide like mine. Slowly work under the bread being very careful not to pop the yolk and gently flip it over. Cook until it gets to your desired firmness.

Now I like my yolks runny, but the rest of the egg firm. I know there’s lots of folks out there scared of the salmonella and want their eggs cooked up all firm and rubbery. To them I’d say, maybe you need to start looking to see if you can find some eggs locally that you aren’t buying from the grocery store. The ones you get there aren’t fresh and the hens who’ve laid them really don’t get out much. The sit in tiny cages in the dark with a little hole big enough for them to eat, and another hole big enough for them to pop out an egg. Then those eggs are washed, crated up, and sent to a refrigeration facility to sit until they are packaged. Sometimes they sit for a few months.

Next time you buy an egg, when you break it open and put it in your bowl, take a look. Fresh eggs have round yolks that stand up pretty proudly above the white. Eggs that have been in the fridge for a while have yolks that look flattened. Fresher eggs taste richer and when things don’t have as long to sit, they are less likely to pick up little germy bits while they wait. Google local farms or farmer’s markets if you can and go get yourself a dozen fresh eggs. Try them out. If you don’t like them, you can always go back to the grocery store for what they offer.

Be warned, fresh eggs are expensive, but I am a firm believer in spending as much as you possibly can on good things to eat.

Now I like Mr. Toad with a couple grilled tomatoes, just laid on the griddle until they carmelize a little bit.

To drink, I had an AM. Put a little Gran Marnier or Triple Sec in a glass. Add a splash of grenadine, and the juice of half a freshly squeezed lemon. Fill up the flute 3/4 of the way with apricot nectar, and then float some Moscato on the top. You can use champagne or asti, but I like the sweetness of a Moscato. Get a strawberry and slice it up the middle and put it on the glass to garnish.

Dig In.