Late-Morning Glory

I’m not a morning person, but I love breakfast--as long as someone else fixes it. My idea of purgatory is to get up early, shuffle into the kitchen and hustle up the meal my mother made for me every morning of my childhood: fried eggs, bacon, milk, orange juice, buttered toast cut into triangles. My idea of hell is to make pleasant conversation while doing so.

You can see why I never made the mommy A-list. My daughters will testify to the many mornings of their youth when I lingered in bed, listening as they gathered Corn Pops and milk. “Be sure and eat some fruit,” I’d cry weakly from the darkened bedroom, like Proust’s bossy invalid aunt. “OK, Mama,” they’d answer, then leave for school without touching the oranges and bananas I had laid out the night before.

But I’m not a total sluggard. On weekends, I can rise to the occasion, as long as it’s after 10 a.m. French toast, anyone? Homemade scones with my own raspberry jam? Omelets and hash browns and buttermilk pancakes? No problem. That’s the difference a few hours can make in the biorhythms of the morning-impaired.

In short, I was born to do brunch. It celebrates the breakfast foods I adore at an hour when I am functional enough to be decent company. Slow starters appreciate the languid pace of late-morning affairs such as the one we attended years ago in Washington, D.C., where our thoughtful hosts provided several kilos of Sunday newspapers alongside faultless eggs Benedict. In a scene that would be considered a social disaster at the dinner table, we happily ate, read and guzzled mimosas while hardly speaking to one another at all.

Brunch lends itself to wide interpretation. In the Texas city where we used to live, a fine old house had been converted into an elegant restaurant famous for its lavish Sunday spread. Well-dressed diners strolled the wide veranda and rolling lawn where peacocks strutted beneath live oaks veiled in Spanish moss. The Southern-style menu was apparently conceived in a fever of antebellum excess--huge haunches of ham and roast beef, vegetables besotted with cream sauces, an entire sideboard laden with rich desserts--that stunned us into long naps afterward.

After the advent of children, brunch usually meant a late, lazy breakfast with friends at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant. We plied the kids with tortillas and frijoles--they had consumed their breakfast hours earlier--while we lingered over gossip and huevos rancheros. The best part was getting up and leaving the mess for someone else to clean up.

I found this recipe for huevos Benedictos in a new cookbook by Texas chef David Garrido, who puts a spicy spin on classic eggs Benedict with chipotle chile-spiked hollandaise and jalapeno-prosciutto refried beans. When I made them for supper the other night--my favorite time for brunch if you want to know the real truth--I skipped the refried beans and added potatoes and fresh fruit as side dishes. Then I proudly demonstrated the arcane skill of poaching eggs.

“Watch this,” I said, stirring a pan of simmering water and slipping two farm-raised raw eggs into the vortex. Strands of white spun around the yellow and the eggs magically congealed in a compact oval.

“Wow,” my husband, the early riser, said. “Can you cook these for breakfast sometime?”

“In your dreams,” I said.*

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HUEVOS BENEDICTOS

Adapted from “Nuevo Tex-Mex” (Chronicle Books), by David Garrido and Robb Walsh

Serves 4

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3 egg yolks

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon water

2 teaspoons canned chipotle peppers, pureed

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

Salt

8 thin slices Canadian bacon

1/4 cup white vinegar

8 eggs

4 English muffins, cut in half, toasted

Fresh cilantro

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Combine first four ingredients in blender. With blender running, add hot melted butter in thin stream and process until thickened. Season with salt and set aside.

Saute Canadian bacon in skillet over medium heat until slightly browned on one side. Set aside and keep warm.

Boil 2 quarts water in nonreactive saucepan. Reduce heat to simmer and add vinegar. Break one egg (the fresher, the better) in small bowl. Slide egg into pot, close to edge. Poach egg about 3 minutes (whites will be set and yolk still soft) and remove with slotted spoon to drain on paper towel. Repeat with rest of eggs.

Place slice of Canadian bacon (browned side up) on each muffin half and top with poached egg. Drizzle top with chipotle hollandaise and garnish with cilantro.

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Food stylist: Christine Masterson