Best Holiday Breakfast

I don't know about any of you but the last thing I want do on any holiday morning are breakfast dishes.

Now,
I will stuff and truss a turkey. I will walk a whimpering dog. I will even change the diaper of a two month old who is only distantly related to me, but I will not put on a breakfast production nor do I wish to deal with the aftermath.

Holidays are hectic. There is enough sauteeing, pureeing, mashing, zesting and baking to do, without having to worry about breakfast. If you have family stayiing with you, there are disputes to negotiate, accommodations to be made and then modified and husbands who require calming, grandmothers who require reasuring and children who well...children who need to know that Mom is not headed for a meltdown.

At the very same time I want "special" for my holidays and that unfortunately includes special breakfasts. No cheerios or frozen pancakes. Definitely none of those silly breakfast bars. I need special and easy. Luckily I came from a household where a champagne Mimosa greeted you before your feet hit the floor and no one minded if you chomped on a few Chips Ahoy before you found your toothbrush. It was peaceful and it was easy. Here is my personal update on my perennial favorite the peaceful easy elegant breakfast.

Beverages

Coffee. If you are having any more than six adults staying with you, in your home, in a guest room, or usurping your childrens rooms, or even parked in the driveway in an embarrassing looking trailer, you need a coffee urn. This is that big old metal contraption that you can find at work, at a rental center or in the pantry of your sister in law who does the church fundraisers. Everyone knows someone with an urn they are not using and you need that urn today to mete out coffee for a long time. You are going to need this urn again at the end of dinner so think of it as a reliable friend. This is not the time to use expensive coffee. Use your regular ground coffee and let the aroma waft through the house. I know this is right because the Folgers people made about a dozen commercials about the smell of coffee on holidays and it was such a great ad campaign that it used to make me cry. Put on the coffee as soon as you hop out of bed and before you even address the bird. Figure two cups per adult and then another two cups just to be sure. This is a tried and true coffee formula. You will have to dump out any more coffee that will taste very bad if you make more than this amount too early in the day.

Juices. Children who visit your home for the holiday inevitably do not like coffee, unless they are your own children who, frankly, are not permitted coffee. These small children like sweet things to drink and I am ever accommodating (the children of my extended family are quite cute so they get pretty much anything they ask for). Moreover, these children will also cheerfully agree to sleep in sleeping bags or on lumpy cots or flimsy air mattresses so in my book they get whatever they ask for and then some.

A few weeks before the holiday I visit the juice aisle which is also the bargain aisle in my local market. I avert my gaze from the bargain side of the aisle to the juice side of the aisle. Apple, Grape, Cranberry, Cranberry Apple,.... I buy whatever it is they are trying to rid themselves of at the grocery store. I bring this all home and pack it up in the summer cooler and plant it on the patio. Unless it is very very cold (wicked cold to we New Englanders) the juice will be just fine and ready for the sippy cup on Thanksgiving morning. If the child is too old for a sippy cup he gets a plastic cup because as was well whined above, I do not do breakfast dishes on a holiday. I finish off this beverage with a straw and some of those paper umbrella on safe toothpicky like ornaments from our local Chinese restaurant. (I buy these non perishables months in advance). I cannot tell you why, but the little paper umbrellas reduce spillage immeasureably. Perhaps children do not wish to spill drinks with little paper umbrellas in them or perhaps the umbrellas lend balance to unsteady hands.

Alcohol I have to serve alcohol at family events because none of my family would bother visiting (or bring their sweet juice drinking children) to my house if I did not. I am very careful about this element though, because I am not a fan of garrulous arguments or people I love photographed dancing with lampshades on their heads. I serve the simple
Champagne Mimosa. Don't buy expensive champagne, buy a magnum or two of the bubbly that is cost effective because the orange juice you will add will deny vintage and improve cheapness with each passing sip. Fill up a glass, any glass, with champagne, top it off with an inch of O.J. and if you are a pureist, or of French descent, splash some Cointreau on the top, and serve. Chill the Champagne first (but not on the patio where it could be too cold). Do not put the little paper umbrellas in the mimosa glasses. No you should not do this. It hampers proper sipping and, in my family, causes all manner of fire hazards, when smokers get confused and smoke their drink and sip their cigarette. Yes, yes there are smokers, even in my family.

Carbs

In late October I start the carb breakfast baking process. I make fruit and veggie breads in any combination I can think of and for which I can find the right ingredients. These, over the years, have included: strawberry, banana, cranberry, pumpkin, zucchini, blueberry, apple cinnamon and even carrot bread. I make two loaves of each (exactly two loaves but for a combined total of six) and freeze them whole. The day before the holiday, I defrost, unwrap, slice and then arrange slices on a nice platter. I wrap until serving time and leave them out of the fridge to serve at room temperature. If you stick the toaster in a conspicious place and put out a few ramekins of butter, cream cheese or creme fraiche your guests will figure out what to do next. Children like cream cheese spread on fruity breads a lot so make two ramekins of cream cheese if you have many young ones.

Proteins

You realize, don't you? that in a few hours everyone you know and love will be consuming more calories in one single meal, on this one day, than they should or would, on any other day of the year. This is true and we all know this without my having to post any graphs or charts. To that end, skip the eggs and the bacon, the sausage and the hash brown extravaganzas. You are not Dennys. You are not IHOP. You are peaceful elegant and easy cook.

My New England friends insist on deviled eggs for every occasion. It is a must. Luckly I have only relived here in Massachusetts for a few years and I don't and won't do deviled eggs when I have a 25 lb bird in the oven and 15 relatives who need seconds on their Mimosas.

I do Fondue. I do it partly because I am part French, but also because it is easy, cheap and elegant and both kids and adults like it and it does taste very very good. The Saturday before the holiday I buy unsliced ham and salami and chop it up into chunks. I buy julienne of celery and carrots and (for my amusement only) rinse some brussel sprouts and elegantly plate them. I make fondue and plate up all the meat and veggies and leave everyone to their own devices. Some people, who are more etiquettely correct than I, cut up a baguette and plate that as well. I do not. I have made my carb bed and I stand by it and lie in it. Besides, a little chunk of banana bread dunked in an emmenthal gruyere mixture never harmed anyone.

No, it is cheese fondue, and as such, not the best medium for strawberries (see Valentines Day and all things chocolate) and it does not require immense clean up. At the end of breakfast, you have the tray for the breads, the fondue pot, the tray for the meats and veggies and a few butter knives that you spread butter on the breads. You can toss all these items in the dishwasher and then only the mimosa glasses and coffee cups are left. Both, provided you didn't get all extravagant on me, are not crystal or bone china, and can go into the dishwasher as well.

You are all done until turkey time. Kick off your slippers, order all your family to rooms for naps or showers or bedmaking or whatever else, sit back, polish off the rest of that champagne and soak up the rest of that fondue with your strawberry bread. You can put a paper umbrella in your drink. I won't tell.

(Very special congratulations to my dear friend Nancy, and her new husband Dave, who eloped this weekend in San Fransisco. May you always have love, health and each other. You filled our hearts with joy, and of course, my eyes with tears, when we received your announcement earlier today).