Breakfast in Ben Lomond, Santa Cruz Mountains
So, when you wake up in the summer with a wicked cold what do you do? Well, for starters the last thing on earth I do want is to get into my kitchen and make any kind of mess. It’s 9am here and already 85 degrees out. Summer in the Santa Cruz Mountains generally means that it’s going to be hot. Which, for those who really wonder, is exactly why I moved out of San Francisco. Yep. I got really tired of the summer months meaning foggy cold days and wind. Nope. A couple of failures with tomatoes in my backyard was another reason, but suffice to say lousy weather is a damn fine reason to move.
So, here I am on another piping hot summer day and I have a cold and don’t want to cook. Let me start by saying my options around here are limited. Very limited. We tried to go to the Mountain Home for breakfast because people had told up that they have a “great” breakfast. Of course some of these same people once told me that Scopazzi’s was good and that place most definitely is not. So, Dianthe and I decided we’d give it the college try. What the hell? Hop in the car and roll into downtown Boulder Creek. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. And? I have a cold. Not your usual run of the mill sniffles, but the sinus infection and sore throat that kept me up for the bulk of the night. A bad cold and a foul attitude. Why is there no place to get bagels in this town? Grrr…
We park. We walk up on this fine Wednesday morning to find: “Closed. Closed on Tuesdays and Wednesday’s.” Well of course. That makes perfect sense. Oh, this kills me. Next option? Get out of town and go to Ben Lomand where they have a somewhat normal breakfast place that, as I recall, sells perfectly straight up and serviceable breakfast and has lunch options. “Eggs and bacon. Burger and fries.” I can live with that. There really are not enough places to eat in this town. Granted we are not in the East Village. I know, I know, I know. Yet still. There are people here. Would not the fine people of the San Lorenzo Valley enjoy a Thai dinner or a steaming hot bowl of Japanese Ramen for lunch? Perhaps not. Curry from Northern India or Cambodia would also make my heart sing… OK. I get it. We are in the mountains now and in the world where pizza, burgers and Chinese are about as exotic as it gets. I know, I know. But still… OK. Enough already. A decent breakfast is a decent breakfast and at this point I’ve already had a perfect French press coffee pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee and thus, my gourmet fix.
We pop into Spanky’s. The place was lovingly named after the TV character Spanky from The Little Rascals. The walls are adorned with pictures from the comedic television show, which reminds me, fleetingly, of my childhood. The place is classic diner style with a hard working kitchen in the back. The waitress is blond, thin, cute and efficient. Friendly not chatty. She takes our order and quickly clears up any confusion I may have had on the true nature of their version of cottage fries. (They are just like any other version of breakfast potatoes and not to be confused with hash brown potatoes. [Which in a diner setting I prefer] So, I order eggs, toast and bacon. Dinathe does the same. We are creatures of habit and generally like to go with a known win. No sense getting crazy and trying the pancakes. [Note: there are very few places that make decent pancakes in America. Shocking, yes, I know. ] We also get coffee. Dinathe does not like her coffee. She tells me it is “not very good.” Again. Expectations. Here and in all diners I walk in that door knowing with total assurance that I am going to have some average to poor coffee. I like my coffee strong. I drink my coffee black. Because it tastes more like coffee. Because you can effortlessly detect each subtle nuance of flavor. Cream and sugar are a blanket of warm fuzzy that hides those incredible notes of tobacco and leather or that hint of blueberry and the scent sunlight as it warms a summer field. So, not sugar and no cream for me. Except? Expect when I am in a diner. The coffee is not freshly ground. The coffee was not, by any stretch of the imagination, freshly roasted. The coffee was a bulk purchase. The coffee is a high margin money maker that some accounting minded person deemed another place to increase profit margin while shopping at Cost-Co. So, I sure as hell use some cream when having cups of coffee at a diner. The coffee is also seldom strong. Meaning? You had damn good and well better drink a lot of it or your heart might stop beating from a clear and evident lack of caffeine.
OK, enough ranting and raving about my coffee snob nature. The food is delivered in a fast and efficient manner. We are asked “if there is anything else..” There is nothing else. We tuck into our hot platters of exceptional diner food and I feel that all is good in the world. A simple and perfect meal. There is no need to snivel about the coffee. There is no need to bemoan the bad economy, my chronic neck and back pain or the most recent 24 hours of absolute hell suffering from a cold that would most certainly kill a less able man. No. Now, everything is perfect and I am putting grape jelly on sourdough toast that looks like it was spread with some kind of liquid butter. [the color of the butter is frightfully yellow and the spread itself far too uniform to have been lovingly taken from a slab of salt free Gilt Edge butter.] Yet still, grape jelly (not jam) comes from those tiny white rectangular packets with the peel off top. Generally you’ll find strawberry, orange marmalade and the grape jelly. I like the grape best as it seems almost entirely synthetic in taste and structure. The strawberry often has a near jam like consistency and the orange periodically has a hint or a notion of it’s actual roots with a zest or bit of rind. When in Rome? As synthetic as possible. Yep. So, I slather this bright purple jelly on my toast and enjoy piping hot eggs over easy (two of them) and crisp, perfectly done bacon. (four rather generous slices) and that perfectly devious sourdough toast with grape jelly. Dianthe also enjoys her meal with true, heart-felt enthusiasm.
Soon we ask for our check and wander back out into the increasingly hot summer day in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Another cup of coffee from the French Press would sure me nice….
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