Brek Day One: The Power of Pizza

There is quite possibly nothing more delicious for breakfast than cold pizza. Biting into coagulated cheese and icy tomato sauce atop a crust that is quickly coming to resemble cardboard might not be most peoples' definition of a stellar eating experience, but there are plenty of us with fond memories of a childhood in which pizza for breakfast was tantamount to a snow day. Cold pizza breakfasts were reason enough to forgo that last slice, so that you could wrap it in tin foil and open it up next morning like an edible Christmas present.

In New York, cold pizza left over from the night before is well and good, but it's certainly not the only option. Here in the outer boroughs, the pizzerias open bright and early. Lots of blue collar worker dudes getting off of their night shifts can be seen tucking into a Grandma slice at ten in the morning. For people like me who forgot to eat a proper dinner and went out drinking all night, the fact that one can procure a piping hot, fresh from the oven slice is priceless. God Bless Brooklyn, de facto pizza capital of the world.

This morning I staggered out of bed at ten-ish to feed a certain Bitsy Boo, and then cooled my heels until I thought I could run across the street to San Marco, my pizza joint of choice, without the proverbial egg on my face. I didn't need to be so ashamed -- the place was bumping at 10:48am, full of old-timers speaking Italian and drinking their espresso, hulking construction worker types face down in Sicilian slices, and an odd hipster or two reeking of last night's booze and cigarettes. I ordered a Neapolitan and a Sicilian, both steaming hot from the oven, grabbed a 20 oz. coke -- aka the elixir of the gods when one is feeling not 100% -- and beat a fast path back to my home where I made quick work of the doughy, slightly undercooked Sicilian first, jaws still not fully awake. By the time I had finished I literally had to rest my mouth. Then on to slice numero dos. Man, I gotta say, San Marco is the obvious choice for sheer proximity, but damned if they don't make some of the best pies in New York. The cheese is stringy and spongey and has a subtle beer aftertaste. The sauce is perfect, not too sweet, not too acidic, and the crust is crisp on the bottom but maleable and doughy on top.

A few swigs of my Coca Cola classic and I'm ready to face the day. Right after I wake up from this food coma.

I'm A Brek Gurl

A few months back I encountered a gastro-crisis of sorts. See, I'd recently left my regular 9 to 5 job and because I was liberated from having a particular wake-up time, found myself arising from sleep at all hours, ranging from "morning" to "late morning" to "early afternoon." Ah, bliss. But I digress. I found that the irregular times at which I awoke created some confusion as to what I ought to eat first thing. Normally, I'm a big fan of breakfast and all of its attendant foodstuffs. Most regular days I'd have kicked things off with a yogurt or an omelet or a bagel egg and cheese for the days when I was a bitsy hung over. And of course there were also the times that sadly I skipped brek altogether and coasted onward to lunch, which provides a veritably endless array of food choices.

Now I was in a quandary: What if, say, I woke up at twelve or one but still wanted breakfast food? Certainly this is the premise that brunch was based on, but brunch is a special weekend meal. Even the leisure class doesn't indulge in brunch during the week. Ladies Who Brunch? No. I rest my case.

Even more troubling were the times when I arose BEFORE noon and found my meal options limited by the understanding that until noon, only breakfast foods were, loosely speaking, allowed. I mean of course I KNOW that I'm an adult and I could've eaten anything I damn well chose, but for some reason . . . for some strange reason, breakfast seemed to have these unspoken rules that are blindly followed. Perhaps that's why when the rules of breakfast are flouted, like say when you eat cold pizza for breakfast, or better yet, when you eat "breakfast for dinner," the act always seems like some delicious, naughty transgression.

Why are there so many rules and regulations regarding the breakfast meal? Is it because, as we're taught from the time we can swallow cream of wheat that it's 'the most important meal of the day'? Why does such staunchly protected ritual surround this meal, when all bets are off for lunch or dinner?

What really got me thinking is the fact that if you're more of a savory than a sweet person, the only options you have for breakfast are eggs and egg-based concoctions. Sure you could have toast or cheese grits or hash browns, but I'm talking the main even here. If you don't feel like eating an omelet or cream cheese on a bagel, what, really does that leave you?

It is my goal to inquire into the codified world of the breakfast meal -- to understand its rules and deviations, to explore the culturally and regionally specific foods that inhabit the breakfast spectrum, and to, whenever possible, document my own breakfast eating as a sort of social experiment. And also to make sense of the various and sundry morning and breakfast related idioms that pepper our every day speech. The early bird gets the worm, and half off the breakfast buffett at Big Boy.