fried eggs breakfast with risotto

This breakfast was easier to make than it was to photograph because the elements were prepared previously, the risotto and the compound butter used to fry the eggs and to dress the rice. All that was left was to fry two eggs and that is done simply within a few minutes.

That compound butter is a fantastic idea. What a splendid way to save herbs from being wasted that are on their way out. Arresting their oxidation by locking them in butter, then using that butter for nearly everything that butter is used for is a welcome addition to a gourmand's arsenal. With a squirt of lemon or lime, bang, you've got a sauce. In this case the risotto is already loaded with lemon zest and the juice of a lemon so half of a sauce is already there just waiting to combine with its other half.

This risotto is incredible and, being rice -- Rice! Impossible! -- it's a brilliant variation on a typical American breakfast of eggs, hash browned potatoes, and toast. It even has bacon, turkey and chicken and Parmigiano Reggiano* inside it, but looking at this plate makes me a little bit sad. Here's why:

You rarely if ever see fresh vegetables on a typical American breakfast menu, and that is a low down no good dirty rotten shame, in'nit, because by custom and cultural preferences, it deprives the population of one good chance in the day, every day, to eat reasonably wisely. Wutupwidat?

Think about this for a minute, what you as American if you are, prefer for breakfast. Generally; eggs fried, scrambled, poached + bacon, ham, sausage, sometimes steak + hash browned potatoes, grits, polenta, mush, call it what you will, it's all corn grain + toast. Starch upon starch upon starch, carbohydrate upon carbohydrate upon carbohydrate, day after day after day, and if not this then cereal or oatmeal, more fast carbohydrate. Now ask yourself in all sincerity, "why am I fat?" And try to tell me, "I don't understand it, I've tried everything!" Those cows on the television who keep saying that over and over are not being completely honest with themselves.

This breakfast does not address that bizarre generalized cultural preference for breakfast vegetable avoidance.

I hereby declare that I shall no longer participate in this cultural practice of disregarding vegetables for breakfast. If I'm at a restaurant and all they suggest on their breakfast menu is fast carbohydrates and fatty proteins, then I'll ask politely, "May I please have a salad or a side of broccoli?"

What, no?

FINE THEN! I'll wait for lunch and in this manner avoid entirely your enforced cultural predilections, you sorry fascist COW.

* Quite a lot of milk goes into that cheese. Special milk, not just ordinary milk. Milk is not water, but it's similar by weight. One liter of water weighs 1 kilogram or 35.27396 ounces. Also different types of milk have slightly different weights. For the sake of reasonable calculation, and so your head does not explode from mathematics, let's say that 1 liter of milk weighs 1 kilogram, and call that close enough. Even though it is actually more like 1.03 kilograms. 1 liter = 335.27 blah blah blah ounces. Now we can calculate how much milk goes into one pound of Parmigiano Reggiano, which is important to us because it's an awful lot. The starting vats hold 1,100 liters of milk, except they spell them litres over there. Each vat ultimately produces two wheels of cheese. The average of the wheels, they do vary in weight, is 39 kilograms. So, 550 liters of milk go into what ends up being 39 kilograms of cheese. 550÷39=14.1 That's over 14 kilograms of milk, which we're using for liters for mathematic convenience, for every kilogram of Parmigiano Reggiano. And that's a lot! In avoirdupois measurements that translates to 31 pounds of milk for 2.2 pounds of cheese, or 14.09 pounds for 1 pound of cheese. These are US gallons. So if you ever think to yourself, "gosh darnit, this pound of Parmigiano Reggiano sure is expensive," then you must remember you're buying over 14 pounds of milk. Come to think of it, a US gallon (water, not milk) weighs 8.35 pounds, so that's only just under two gallons of milk for one pound of cheese. I guess that is rather expensive. * whispers * "Never mind."