Food Friday : Sunday Brunch Garbage Bowl

Okay, so, my disciplined approach of using themes to keep me writing regularly fell apart in just the second week of creating the idea of themes! To have a little integrity, albeit a few days late (see about integrity in The Workshop Recap), I am doing Food Friday on Sunday, but I will keep the theme ‘Food Friday’, thank you very much. The story starts on Friday anyway, so Food Friday is still fitting.

Oivind, my slightly better half and the lucky guy that gets to spend many waking hours with me, and I had the unfortunate, pleasure of a repeat trip in two consecutive days to Salem, MA after he left a personal item at a bar Friday night (read: his credit card to our joint account).  Perhaps it was a fortunate boomerang trip since I did get Sunday breakfast and the opportunity to maintain my integrity with this post out of the deal.  Thus, rather than a nice, relaxing Saturday evening BBQ of hot Italian sausages with specks of red pepper, fennel and oregano in them, grilled honey-marinated peach halves with a hint of paprika and yellow-confetti, just from the stalk sweet corn cobs smothered in Seacoast Butters Bacon Butter at home, we ended up going on a scavenger hunt for a dinner spot in Salem to serve as a reasonable substitute.

For the uninitiated, Salem is a touristy little town thriving on it’s twisted past of persecuting women for being different. Sure, they called those ladies witches. They also persecuted them for public safety claiming to fear for their own lives. They were even doing the women a favor by saving their poor tortured souls through elaborate trials and executions by drowning. But, gee, isn’t it the same story for every other bigoted slander used to oppress those who are different? Interestingly though, Salem embraces and celebrates this storied past with displays of witchcraft, psychic readings, haunted tours and tchotchke shops that include the opportunity to dress up like witches.  Never mind that women were villified, hunted and killed for this. Sure, there is mention of the terrible acts, but, that  largely gets lost in the witches-over-bubbling-cauldrons caricatures that dominate the place.  Imagine celebrating atrocities of killing people out of ignorance and bigotry like this in other locations around the world. See what I mean, twisted.

I could illustrate examples, but, I have wandered far enough from the topic at hand. Salem is touristy and into witches, now, back to the food.

Rather than hit up one of those tourist restaurants, we decided to check out The Old Spot. Truth be told, after finding all the outside tables full at any of the tourist restaurants we thought would be promising, we opted for an off-the-beaten place that looks slightly seedier than the tourists spots.  Oh, and in case you are wondering, yeah, the forgot-our-credit-card tavern did have outdoor seating and some open spots, but the memorable-for-all-the-wrong-reasons (too much bland sauce, runny pesto instead of fresh basil, soggy, thin crust) margherita pizza made us want to try our luck elsewhere.  Did I mention the bar crawl replete with matching outfits as well?

The Old Spot was the type of place we were looking for.  Down a street away from the main drag. Seemingly no tourists in sight. Mood lighting that bordered on darkness. Fully tattooed and pierced staff and a beer list rivaling some of Boston’s best beer pubs (They sport “sixteen finely crafted draught beers with another twenty bottles to choose from”).  Besides, you really can’t miss with a place adorned in decor and menu items with an ode to the pig.  As a matter of fact, ‘Old Spot’ is taken from the nickname for a breed of pig called Gloucestershire.

For some reason, my Saturday night stomach was in small mode. It just couldn’t absorb both the beer and the pulled pork sandwich.  That’s not an indicator that either wasn’t worthy of being fully devoured on the spot. The beer was a Session Pilsner from the good folks at Notch Brewing.  In my well-sampled opinion, Notch has some of the finest microbrews around.  Lucky for me, they hail from nearby Ipswitch, MA.  The Slow Roasted Pork Sammie was a delectable concoction of fall-apart, moist and fatty pulled pork, topped melty-gooey swiss, dill pickle spears and dijon mayo between slices marbled rye that were butter for extra kick. It was sidled up with super-crunchy sweet potato fries. Anywhere with a sweet potato fry that goes crunch is alright in my book.

Mentally, I wanted the whole thing, but half way through, I had to cede the sandwich battle and request a box. I even abandoned a handful of those magic sweet potato wands for the to-go box. Seriously, when have I ever not been able to finish fries – sweet potato fries at that? Let’s leave it at stomach was just weird and move on.

The misfortune of a full stomach led in an awesome breakfast – my garbage bowl breakfast.

This breakfast idea was inspired by the spicy, crunchy, tangy, runny-eggy, tongue-scorchingly hot, baked-eggs-in-a-crock breakfast I had at Salvation Taco last weekend in New York City.  I started out by covering the bottom of a 5-inch shallow crock with some beef-n-white-bean chili leftover from last week. I layered that with the left over pulled pork sammie innards. Since Oivind isn’t a pickle kind of guy, I’ll admit I munched them during construction, but I managed to resist doing the same with the sweet potato fries. Those got torn up and sprinkled in with the pork. Why not? It is a ‘garbage bowl’ after all. Next, I cracked a backyard egg (you might prefer two) on top and laid on some flour tortilla strips.  Top that with a few more spoonfuls if chili and finish it with bacon batons cut from just a thumbs width of a bacon slab. Decadent, right? Hell yeah, thus is brunch, not a weekday, run-of-the-mill, start a workday breakfast. Brunch at home, folks, has to be hangover worthy and it must be able to go toe-to-toe with a brunch outing.

Now, the crocks went under the broiler for 8 minutes to get a soft baked egg, hot bubbly chili, a mix of crunchy toasted tortillas with chili-smothered tortillas and some sizzling, crispy bacon pieces.

Salvation Taco may take issue of the comparison if my leftover dish to their from-scratch crock-licking goodness called Chilaquiles Baked Eggs. To be clear, the elements were inspired by my Salvation Taco breakfast, but the flavors and textures were very different. Per the dish’s namesake, traditional Mexican Chilaquiles, they use corn tortillas.  Per the incredible talents of April Bloomfield, they use her tangy recipe of green chili. The green chili is so compelling on its own, they didn’t even have to slip in batons of bacon to earn my everlasting love. Don’t make a garbage bowl thinking you’ve now experienced Salvation Taco, you must got there and eagerly burn your own tongue on it to really get it. But, in lieu of a NYC experience, the garbage bowl is delicious and super fast – even if you did have a hang over.

If you didn’t happen into The Old Spot the night before and you don’t have leftover chili on hand, baked eggs are an impressive twist on the usual egg breakfast. They are always brunch-worthy. My go-to option is baked eggs topped with fresh herbs and grated Parmesan.  For those, pre-warm a crock under the broiler with pat of butter and a sprinkle fresh herbs, salt and pepper.  Fresh cut rosemary is my favorite pairing.  Once the butter is melted, crack the eggs into the warmed crock and top with Parmesan and another sprinkle of herbs.  Return it to the broiler for 3-5 more minutes to the preferred done-ness.  I like to place them really close to the broiler so I can get a generous mix of soft-baked eggs and bubbling, melted Parmesan that is browned with just a hint of charred shell. Yes, even something this elegant is also a hang-over easy dish.

There’s lots of ways to modify baked eggs to make them classy, hearty, hangover-worthy or to impress your in-laws on a Sunday morning with your egg-baking prowess. Start with bacon or ham in the crock. Toast an a English muffin under the broiler before adding the egg. Top with Hollandaise for a transformed Benedict. Add chili and cheese. Go naked with just eggs and butter. Perhaps, start with some leftover pasta sauce or Babaganoush for an Mediterranean spin Oh, the options are endless!