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In the summer I like to get up early-early and go down to the brook and catch a few of those little trout that tend to hang out in a deep pool beneath a clump of alders. Once I have 3 or 4 of them (just about legal size, which is 6", or a wee bit bigger), I go back to the house via the side field and clean the fish on the stone wall, leaving the innards for the crows (hey, they gotta have breakfast, too). Fry up those little trout in some butter, add a couple of over-easy eggs and some toast from homemade oatmeal bread (with our homemade strawberry jam, of course), and that"s good eating! Another summer favorite: a big handful of fresh raspberries picked along the fencerow, still warm from the morning sun, with cream and just a little sugar. In the fall, a tall cold glass of fresh-squeezed cider made from our apples (McIntosh, Cortlands and Northern Spies, mostly) is a treat. There"s usually a big bowl of fresh applesauce in the middle of the table, too. A cup of fresh-brewed coffee is always good (and lets the rest of the house know it"s time to get up), but more often than not we have a pot of tea. When I was young the old folks told me that during the Civil War the supply of coffee to New England was cut off due to the naval blockade of southern ports where most coffee was imported, so folks around here took to drinking tea in the mornings instead, and many still do. On winter mornings when I"m headed for the woodlot, I like a hearty "rib-stickin"" breakfast of oatmeal. (Not the quick-cooking oats but the old-fashioned kind. Or, when I can get them, thick-rolled oats from a friend"s farm upstate). Sometimes I have them with brown sugar or molasses, but even better is to add some applesauce from the freezer or some stewed rhubarb (or a mixture of the two, even better). On woodlot days, home-made doughnuts are good when you"re in a hurry to leave the house, or to have to tuck into the dinner pail for a mid-morning snack when I stop to file the saw. Doughnuts were invented here in Maine, and are properly made from dough that is rolled out and cut, and fried in oil. Molasses are my favorite. I don"t have these very often because of all the fat involved (and to think, my grandmother used to fry her doughnuts in lard!). Folks who have only the kind of "donuts" sold at Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts don"t know what they"re missing. Another favorite breakfast is leftover home-baked beans, cooked in a skillet with a couple of eggs poached on top (put a lid on the skillet once the beans are warmed and poach the eggs until the yolks start to firm up). The same technique works well with corned beef hash: Fry it up until crisp, then make a couple of dents in the top with the back of a spoon, and poach eggs on top as described above. If there"s any boiled dinner left over (for you folks from away, that"s ham or corned beef boiled in a pot with potato, beets, carrots, turnip or rutabaga, and sometimes parsnip and/or cabbage), we like to make Red Flannel Hash, which is the boiled dinner fixin"s all diced up and fried in a skillet. Goes good with an egg or two. A dropped egg on buttered wheat toast is always good, with a little fresh-ground black pepper. Wow! All that talk about food made me hungry. Almost time for dinner. But that"s another story...
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