Happy New Year and the Glorious B.L.T.

When I was a wee girl, my maiden aunt visited us from Washington, D.C.  She was the glamorous aunt, who went to fine parties, who hobnobbed with government officials, and who always sent me the best birthday and Christmas presents.  I remember in particular a pair of silver strappy high heels and a “diamond” tiara; what little girl wouldn’t love feeding her princess obsession with that?  So when she came to visit, I was thrilled when she suggested taking me shopping.  We went to one of the last living real department stores and looked at everything from ladies' brassieres to luggage to dishes and crystal.  Then we went to the lunch counter, and I had my very first Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato.  I had to know and experience what the sandwich with the mysterious letters was.  I have been enamored of the BLT ever since.  The bacon was slightly crunchy but not burnt; the tomatoes were sliced thinly and fit perfectly inside the borders of the toasted white bread.  The lettuce was not iceberg, but a big, beefy leaf straight from somebody’s garden.  The mayo glistened, squirting out when I flattened the sandwich to better grasp it.  The sandwich was cut diagonally, something I would pester my mother to do for me from then on.  And, best of all, I was a big girl, sitting on a high stool at the counter with my aunt, having lunch at a real restaurant with real plates and little tiny glasses of ice water and coffee cups with saucers.  There were old men drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, and I was sitting right up there with them.  God, how I loved that sandwich.

Never mind that the years have made me aware that it was a little run-down greasy spoon in a little run-down antiquated department store; never mind that the bread was Wonder Bread and that it seemed like a fancy place because I was there with my aunt, and because it wasn’t McDonalds.  Never mind that my tastes have become more sophisticated, and my aunt has become much more, well…human.  I still love a good BLT, and it never fails to bring back memories of a happy time in a little girl’s life when she felt important and grand.

So, it is with a certain amount of forward thinking paired with a healthy dose of nostalgia that I ring in 2013 with something new and something old.  For breakfast I invented “Eggs Prud’homme”:  a small slice of Hubby’s whole grain bread, toasted, spread with my herbed goat cheese spread, then smoked salmon, topped with a poached egg (all accompanied by a fantastic fruit salad that I got up ridiculously early to prepare).  

I finished the day with my version of the classic BLT. In preparation of New Year's Day I had thawed some steak, and even had some foie gras and lovely salad fixings, but it just didn’t happen.  Instead, I cut up some organic grape tomatoes—the only tomatoes with any flavor this time of year—and washed a healthy head of leaf lettuce.  I sliced a few slices of Hubby’s bread, then opened a new jar of fancy organic mayonnaise, and then fried some thick slices of Triple S nitrate-free (a.k.a., headache-free) bacon.  We each partook of our own version:  Hubby’s was open-faced, no mayo; son’s was a lettuce roll-up, also no mayo; mine was a chopped salad with a dollop (official measure) of mayo.  It was filling and satisfying for my family, my present-day self, and the little girl within.  Happy New Year to all of us.