Breakfast was rarely elaborate when I was growing up.Most school days, I ate cereal. Mom and Dad shared coffee, bread and Armenian cheese before rushing off to work at their dry cleaning store.
Eggs were a weekend treat most of the year. In summer, though, my father would sometimes take me along on his morning delivery rounds and we'd stop at a diner along the way. That's where I learned to savor the salty richness of a fried egg on a Kaiser roll.
When Mom did make eggs, there were three choices. My favorite was what I called "sunny side up," even though the sunny side was actually down: Eggs over, medium.
Her favorite was a plain omelet -- just a beaten egg cooked flat as a pancake and slightly browned -- with sugar on top. That's a very Armenian touch -- at least, a very Dikranagertsi touch that Mom no doubt picked up from her own mother.
I liked the sugar, but not the egg.
The third choice was another Armenian tradition that was just OK with me then but has since become my favorite: Eggs scrambled with tomato.
I can't give you a recipe because it's just too simple: You cut up a tomato as chunky or delicate as you like and stir it into your eggs as you scramble them. Add salt and pepper and eat with bread.
Sure, you can add ham or sausage or whatever you care to. But it really isn't necessary. The tomato -- a good tomato -- bathes the eggs in its own wonderful sauce, sort of like built-in ketchup but fresher and better.
I really can't think of a thing that could improve on this simple yet luxurious breakast.
Well, maybe one.
Chorag!
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