"Soldier Boys"

OK, so maybe I am obsessed with breakfast. It could be worse, I could be obsessed with fires or locking my front door or washing my hands. One is allowed to be obsessed with breakfast as one is expected to eat breakfast every day. Moreover one DESIRES to eat breakfast every day. I would say that 90% of the reason I get out of bed in the morning is that I have imagined something delicious to eat.

Working at the restaurant I get a lot of free dinners. While I love a trout in brown-butter lemon sauce, while I love a dijon-caper bowl of mussels, while I love a filet mignon with sauteed bok choy; sometimes I love a memory more.

Eggs are really the most amazing thing. So are cravings—how is it possible that I might crave an egg cooked a particular way, not just the egg itself? The other day I craved a soft-boiled egg. (Maybe it was my subconscious, saying: "make something which won't require scrubbing a frying pan clean.") More specifically, I wanted soft-boiled eggs and toast. More specifically yet, I wanted a favorite childhood breakfast—SOLDIER BOYS:

(2) eggs, soft boiled (boil for 3-5 minutes)

(2) slices of toast (I used Udi's whole grain) ripped up into little chunks.

salt, pepper to taste

optional: a crumble of herbed goat cheese

toss and mash everything together. eat with a fork.

I had to call my dad and ask him why in the name of god this specific dish was called "soldier boys."

Was it because the bread is ripped into small rectangles, representing... soldiers? I wondered. Was it something young soldiers were expected to eat? Did it have something to do with my grandfather's time in Germany, preparing food on the American base? "I have no idea," said my father, and recalled another dish his dad used to prepare for the family, shit on a shingle.

"What's in a name?" we said, and left it at that.