6:45

It is currently 7:03 in the morning. I haven't been out of bed this early since...hm. Spring 2010. High school me laughs at college me, I know it - I'm so lazy. Most mornings I get up at the latest possible time and stagger out the door to school, and I'm late for my 11 am because I was too tired to be bothered to get up before 9:45. In high school, I was out of the door by seven. But today, high school me is too envious to laugh as I sit here, bleary-eyed and multi-sweatered, watching the sun come up through thick rainclouds and listening to the finches and crows singing. Not only am I out of bed, but I also have finished dealing with my bread, which now has to rise for another two hours and then bake for 45 minutes or so. I'm trying out Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread, not because I don't like kneading things, but because apparently it's really good. Unfortunately, I haven't got the right equipment to make it properly - you need a Dutch oven, something which I was unwilling to cart across a country when I moved here and oh by the way costs about as much as my textbooks - and so I added a bit of canola oil to the proceedings and I'm going to bake it in a loaf pan. My hope is that it will be softer than usual, have a less crunchy crust, and be good for toast. If it turns out, I'll post the recipe. If not, I'll cry. In a hole. And then entomb myself with all the baked things that I ever have ruined. It will be mostly burnt cookies.

In other news, you know what's delicious? Frittatas. If you're unfamiliar, it's sort of like a baked omelette without the folding part. Usually, such things are made by heating up the oven at the same time as you're starting the preliminaries on the stove, and then using that to finish the eggs, so that they don't brown on the bottom. The only problem with this is that you have to turn on the oven, using all that energy just to zap a few eggs for five minutes. Sometimes I can't bring myself to see the value in such things. Fortunately, you can make a frittata on the stove, no problem. All you need is a lid.

Red Onion and Chevre* Frittata, stovetop style! (makes one tasty lunch serving)

Saute onion over medium high heat in olive oil, until clear. Beat two eggs together in a bowl and add to the pan, making sure they spread out all over the place. Turn down the heat to medium low. Add crumbles of chevre and spices (Herbes du Providence would be really good, but I don't own any of that, so I used basil and garlic powder), and then cover the pan with some kind of lid. Let it do its thing for a while, checking periodically to see if the eggs are done. Eat as soon as they are.

Though, to be honest, frittatas are really not worth blogging about. They're so straightforward I feel awkward mentioning them, let alone writing down a recipe for them. It feels presumptuous, like I think that no one in Interwebia knows how to cook eggs. I mean, seriously. I'm insulting your intelligence. But they fill me with such joy - this odd simultaneous happiness and homesickness. My emergency backup mother taught me how to make a frittata, at the same time that she taught me what one was in the first place. One of my closest friends, who is mistress of cooking things, used to make frittata almost every day, and she was the one who taught me how to like goat cheese despite its strong taste and chalky texture. So this lunch was kind of a way of going home to them, out of this cold and wet piece of seaside suburbia, back to somewhere that I know is currently cold, but sunny, and where every breath you breathe is so clear it's like you've never tasted air before.

-sigh- I'll go back someday.

Kate

*Chevre = a maleable, crumbly goat cheese.