Food of Our Father

Our dad, J.P. Ford, MD, was down here checking out the Cackalacky Kitchen this past weekend. In honor of our dad, who may well be our only blog reader, or at least our only reader who has this site "Favorited" (way to go, Dad!) I thought I would post an iconic Ford recipe:

THE UNADILLA POWER BREAKFAST

Unadilla is a small town in upstate New York where my dad has a house. He works in State College, PA for most of the week, so this house is at the present mostly a weekend place. Unadilla is our dad's Shangri-la. Even when he is traveling to France or Montreal, which are close seconds to Unadilla in his book, he is always satisfied that he would still prefer to be in Unadilla than any place else on the planet. Part of its charm is that not much changes. Unadilla is sort of like the town time forgot, and the Unadilla Power Breakfast is likewise a little outside the mainstream. A culinary eddy if you will.

The Unadilla Power Breakfast is the name Abby gave to the gastronomic experience that begins at about 8 or 9 in the morning and continues until around noon, when preparations for the afternoon meal begin. As a note of warning or explanation, our dad loves to eat and there is really nothing that he doesn't eat.

To set the stage, before breakfast Dad will have hopped on his bike or just walked down Main Street to the Great American to pick up the New York Times and any key ingredients that weren't on hand. When he gets home he'll turn on some German opera CD really, really loud. There are no speakers in the dining room where the stereo is so what sounds like a reasonable volume in the dining room is ear splitting in the kitchen.

Phase One--The Classic Unadilla Breakfast

Break up some shredded wheat into a cereal bowl. Drizzle maple syrup over the shredded wheat. Add a handful of frozen blueberries. Pour milk over the berries and shredded wheat (it is advisable to check the date on the milk and do the sniff test if no one has been at the house for a while!). Retreat to the sunroom to read the paper and enjoy the wholesome goodness of a nutritionally sound breakfast.

Phase Two -- The Unadilla Power Breakfast

You realize 20-30 minutes later that you are still hungry and something in the Times made you mad, so you go back into the kitchen to see what you can scrounge up. This is what puts the POWER in the Unadilla Power Breakfast. Out comes the salami or sopresatta, Roquefort and/or Epoisses cheese (the stinkier the better), smoked salmon, capers, cornichons, and Wheat-thins. All washed down with "fizzy water" with lots and lots of ice. You might not know that the best thing to chase blueberries and shredded wheat is a cured meat and stinky cheese bender, but then you would not have experienced a true Unadilla Power Breakfast. This Phase of the meal continues until all the edible provisions (and frankly, often many non-edible provisions) have been consumed.

Then we go outside and pull weeds, lament the damage done to the garden by the woodchucks/deer, and start planning what we'll eat for supper.