Enoch’s Thoughts

September 20, 2010

Breakfast

Filed under: Uncategorized — etblog @ 9:10 am

I’m sitting in the Cafe Kia-Ora doing serious damage to a sausage and provolone omelet (which, by the way, I can never remember how to spell. Maybe my poor efforts in high school French are coming back to haunt me.) Breaking my fast has always been high on my priority list. From my Mom’s before-school breakfasts in my youth, through cooking Friday morning pancakes for kids and cousins during their youth, helping whip up big vacation spreads, all the way up to my current not-so-petite dejeuner habits, I’ve always liked breakfast. A couple of nights ago I went to bed a little underfed, and dreamed of a breakfast buffet the size of a supermarket aisle. It was awesome!

I’m not particularly picky. Leftovers, taters and onions, cereal, fruit, grits casserole, it doesn’t matter much to me. Breakfast is as much a time of day and state of mind as a specific type of food. Once at a college house in Athens, I was offered a slice of lemon pie and a PBR for breakfast. (I took the pie, declined the beer, primarily for culinary reasons.)

One of my favorite breakfasts when my schedule permits consists of chopped fruit (whatever is fresh and available – bananas, apples, peaches, strawberries, pears, cantaloupe, honeydew, berries), garnished with my own mix of raw oats, wheat bran, wheat germ, flax seeds, pecans, walnuts, raw almonds, and raisins, and topped with Greek yogurt. Jayne says it looks like I just scraped up stuff out of the back yard.

Another favorite is Jayne’s Saturday morning omelet. What she lacks in omelet experience, she makes up for with enthusiasm. They are always interesting and delicious.

Saturday I had breakfast at the counter of a perennial favorite, Waffle House. Watching a busy WaHo in full tilt is a study in the evolution of process improvement. For a start, I saw amazing examples of teamwork, especially in the grill dance performed by the two cooks, weaving a pattern of bacon, sausage, eggs, and scattered-and-smothered. The whole team has its own language, and everyone was in constant motion, taking orders, passing the orders to the cooks, refilling coffee, cleaning dishes, stacking dishes, taking phone orders, making change. From a communication protocol perspective, each command had an acknowledgment of successful delivery, or, if the command was garbled for some reason, a NAK followed by a retransmission. Each worker performed quality control making sure that the order was correct. They clearly have an effective training process, and an equally effective supply process. Everything they need is close at hand. And on top of it all, they seem to have fun. Amidst the normal name tags of Sandy, Dee, and Mark, there was one waitress whose name tag simply read “The Legend.” She looked to be all-business, even a bit gruff, until she got tongue-tangled on one order and broke out in a big grin at herself.

The Kia-Ora is my current favorite. Proprietors Jim and Shelley have arrived at many of the same techniques as Waffle House, but on a smaller, more personal scale. They opened their small breakfast-and-lunch spot almost two years ago, when the economic downturn was becoming painfully obvious, in a parking deck between two AT&T buildings. But they have managed to make a fine go of it, combining know-your-name friendliness with quality omelets and breakfast sandwiches, lunch sandwiches and burgers, creative salads, and great coffee drinks. While they are usually crowded for lunch, their breakfast traffic is mostly take-out, leaving the dining area available for the occasional meeting, breakfast bunch, or blog, as evidenced by the current missive.

You should really try it sometime. I’ll be glad to introduce you to Jim and Shelley, and Ron, Stormie, Norris, and Nate, any time you are in the neighborhood.

1 Comment »

  1. Yummmm. “…bananas, apples, …raw oats, wheat bran, wheat germ, flax seeds, pecans, walnuts, raw almonds, and raisins…” Sounds like Mama B to me!

    Comment by Cathy — September 26, 2010 @ 12:52 pm

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