Note: I feel it worth noting that much of this was penned while sitting at Maria’s Downtown in my hometown of Ridgeway, Ontario – my current favourite breakfast nook. It is also worthy of mentioning that Maria cooked my breakfast herself, and even remembered my order – the $9.99 “Breakfast Combo” (aka “The Usual”) – after nearly a years absence. That’s what I’m talking about!

I have had a long-standing love affair with breakfast.

Truly, it’s the “Most Important Meal of the Day” but maybe not immediately for all the obvious reasons you might expect to hear like that it fills you up and prevents you from snacking through the remainder of the day, as well as being the major source of just about every vitamin and mineral known to mankind (if the billions of morning breakfast product commercials are to be believed), but largely because breakfast has kept me sane and prevented me from outright killing anyone – or at least causing them severe bodily harm anyway – for the past two decades or so.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve always had this obsessive infatuation with breakfast though.

Sure as a little kid I succumbed to all the typical subliminal messaging placed in the popular breakfast cereal adverts – I likely drove my parents absolutely bat shit crazy until my mother would relent and allow the odd box of Sugar Crisp, or better yet, Fruit Loops, into the house where we kids would set upon it like a pack of velociraptors – but I very quickly lost that excitement for breakfast, preferring instead the 15 minutes of extra sleep in the morning as a teenager and then later on into my young adult years.

It was easy math: breakfast interfered with sleep, so it was an instant “No Bueno” in my books.

The whole “breakfast is for pussies” notion was firmly planted in the terra firma of my brain, so for the next 10-15 years or so, unless it was reaching for another beer upon waking up – “hair of the dog” after all – breakfast was something I seldom partook in.

In fact, I once lived with one of those over-the-top cheerful breakfast types in university and I hated him instantly from Day One; what with all his crash-banging of pots and pans in the kitchen first thing in the morning, and then the incessant happier-than-fuck whistling. There were times I wanted to shove my fist so far up his ass it wouldn’t popped out his ear. “Fuck you, Captain Sunshine!” I’d say, as I fist-fucked his skull over a baking sheet of freshly baked Pillsbury Pop n Fresh, but I digress …

… I was a much angrier person back then.

Breakfast, of course, has since shown me the way.

He definitely didn’t last very long in our household of vampires and near alcoholics, that’s for sure.

I suppose my whole love affair with breakfast really started in the early to mid-90’s when I was living in London, UK. Needless to say, the Brits know a thing or two about breakfast, otherwise popularly known as a “morning fry-up”. In fact, the English so love themselves a good hearty breakfast, that it’s typically available at all times of the day and is featured in window fronts and menus as the “All Day Breakfast”.

Needless to say, the Brits are eons more advanced and civilized than the rest of us troglodytes, albeit their advertising naming conventions could use a little work.

Almost daily, our motley crew of starving bartenders who occupied a dilapidated building affectionately known throughout our collective work circles as “The Pig Pen”, would pool together all the personal leftovers in our fridge and fry the shit out of it with a dozen eggs that we would purchase from the local Imam Variety down the street for £1.89, and a loaf of day old loaf bread from Poppy’s Donuts & Bakery next door for another 89p.

We largely considered this living ‘high on the hog’ and it quickly became the most anticipated (if any) meal of the day. It helped, of course, that breakfast was usually served around three o’clock in the afternoon after we had all clamoured out of bed* and before we all went our separate ways to work … but the sentiment was the same.

It was, however, the start of my genuine love affair for breakfast.

Later as a young bachelor living on my own near downtown St. Catharines, I continued on with this ‘morning-fry-up-with-eggs’ ritual, except that I tended to prefer to have someone else make it for me. And, usually, it wasn’t “leftovers” per se, and sometimes it wasn’t even fried at all, but it was always delicious and well received.

Point is, I was now all ‘thumbs up’ for breakfast.

Most often, I existed Monday through Friday on a quick protein shake and an apple on the way to work – but weekends’ is where I really shined breakfast-wise. It was a weekend treat to take myself out to a local diner, grill, motor inn, or really, any other place known to feature a basic $2.99 ‘Eggs Special’. I would literally troll the area for a decent ‘Eggs Special’, visiting every Brenda’s, Tammy’s, Maria’s, Rosie’s, Pam’s and Suzy’s within a 500 mile square radius.

Seriously, if it has a singular matronly-sounding name – I’ve eaten there.

After another 4-5 years of bachelorhood, my tastes refined a bit, largely helped along by an increase in salary at my then place of employment. Little by little, I gravitated away from the traditional $2.00 ‘Eggs Special’ to the schmaltzy $13.99 ‘Lobster and Eggs Benny’ at the Bleu Turtle Bistro.

La-di-da, eh?

I’d totally be embarrassed for myself too had it not been so freaking amazing.

(Swear to God!)

So hate me if you have to.

Regardless, breakfast was suddenly something more – it was a reward for having made it through the week without killing anyone, or spontaneously combusting for all the maddening, endless streams of horseshit being hurled at you on a daily basis. Breakfast was something to finally be savoured as well as enjoyed, and I didn’t mind paying extra for that experience. For quite a while, a fancy froufrou breakfast at any Cafe Bullshit was my reward for already having accomplished something significant … even if for just having survived so far.

“Congratulations, you tough son-of-a-bitch. You made it! Have some organic buckwheat pancakes.”

Later, while training for my first Ironman (click HERE), breakfast as a “reward” became particularly important mentally, as I’d constantly be thinking about my order immediately following whatever long run or bike ride I had planned that morning as part of my training. Sometimes, my breakfasts were more functional in that they were primarily intended as something to fuel those long workouts.

Either way, breakfast was not a meal to be skipped – ever!

These days, there’s not a lot of “working out” going on as I have now entered some new and unknown phase of Life, but my weekend breakfasts – fortunately – still play an all-important part of the normal routine. Instead of going out now, especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic and global lock down measures, breakfast is a task that I have once again taken on myself.

Breakfast has now morphed into more of a ‘mental health’ type of activity.

Don’t get me wrong, I still strive for ultimate ‘deliciousness’ – but these days I’m equally about the state of Zen achieved while scanning the leftovers in my family fridge and then arranging them in a hot frying pan with some eggs so that it all somehow makes sense. It’s kind of my own mental version of a Japanese ‘Zen Garden’, or perhaps more like crafting mini Bonsai trees in my skillet out of vegetables and protein so that it’s beautiful, unique and delicious. Other times, it’s like I’m back in my old, grungy, dilapidated kitchen in West Ealing, except with better, healthier options to choose from. Although, however I choose to view it in the moment, one thing is for certain – it’s as near a religious experience as I’ve found on this earth.

It’s all about me, alone in the kitchen with the cats looking on from the nearby living room.

And I can be quick to temper as well should anyone roll out of bed too early and disturb my breakfast Zen. At the time, I’m all ‘Breakfast Hair, Don’t Care!’, the coffee is going and I’m getting my total “Me” on … 

Most often, this is also an opportune time to listen to any number of old, beat up records that I’ve thrift-ed from the local pawn shops, as I have found that there is something very visceral about adding music to the typical breakfast mix.

I mean, seriously, when was the last time you allowed yourself to listen to much less, ENJOY, a Sergio Mendez record?

Sometimes the breakfast is completely inspired by whatever it is that has been randomly selected to be played on the turntable at that time, such as it was when I decided to make Huevos Rancheros out of some leftover nachos when I happened to put on a Herb Alpert record (South of the Border, 1964).

Divine intervention?

Probably.

Other times, it’s the other way around where I will choose a record to suit a particular breakfast that I have previously decided to make. To this regard, I suggest to you that there is no better musical accompaniment to making steaks and eggs in the morning than Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959). And if you should ever find yourself lightly scrambling farm fresh eggs with some leftover deli meat and soggy mushrooms, you can do no worse than Paul Desmond’s Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970) as snappy, cool saxophone solos tend to lend themselves well to morning eggs.

Trust me here.

Also of note, if I had to choose an absolute favourite breakfast listen – the near perfect breakfast music – it would be Louis Jordan.

What can I say?

There was just something absolutely magical about listening to I Like em Fat Like That while cooking up some high-quality artisanal sausage.

It was like touching God’s boob.

Remember, it’s all about the ultimate end result here – an overall sense of personal enrichment having just fed your soul as well as your belly.

It’s fairly safe to say nowadays, that if I can’t have my fancy weekend “breakfast messes”, I’d opt to load up a Smith & Wesson and shove it onto my pie hole for a final breakfast high in Vitamin Lead, if you catch my drift.

Breakfast is a necessity.

No matter how the day unfolds, and believe me, I know how fast my beautiful and optimistic caterpillars of “Can do’s” can turn into swarms of incessant and annoying “Fuck it flies” by mid-afternoon, so I like to have this major, self-enriching task accomplished and behind me as early as possible. Consider it the recipe for the perfect day; food for the mind, body and soul …

And if there should be no body count at the end of it all, so much the better!

God help me.

*Being the first one out of bed, typically came with the added responsibility of getting the rather reluctant and stubborn burners of the well-defunct gas oven lit. Eyelashes and eyebrows were known to disappear from time to time. It was not a coveted responsibility.

It has almost been one year since I built this piece of shit:

I’m not really sure what motivated me to build my “Frankenbench”, although I’m fairly certain it was fuelled by far too much caffeine and extreme boredom at the time.

You see, it had occurred to me quite randomly one day during the first onset of the big global lock down that an odd acquaintance from my past which might have either been my great uncle, or a complete stranger that we happened to share a picnic table with at some carnival or fairground somewhere (my memory is not exactly clear here) explained to me, then a young boy, that “you’re not a real man until you build your own workbench”. 

OK.

I’m not sure what his rationale was exactly, but I do remember him being rather adamant about it.

Now don’t get me wrong, this didn’t exactly hit me as being prolific or anything at the ripe age of 12 or 13 years of age and, honestly, it still doesn’t.  Truthfully, it all sounds like some pretty uber-stupid macho bullshit if you ask me but, for whatever reason, on this particular spring day it compelled me to do just that … make my own workbench.

And so I did.

The odd thing is, I don’t even really need a workbench – much less on the side of my shed – but I rationalized that it would be a convenient and handy feature to have for the future backyard garden that we’re likely never going to get around to having …

That was my justification at the time anyway.

At the very least, it was the excuse necessary to get myself balls deep in a “project” in order to alleviate all my pent-up work stress, as well as the vast boredom of being under a self-imposed house arrest on the weekends as requested by all our World Health Organization experts. 

I am a good citizen after all.

So in this case, that “project” was going to be my first workbench.

I was finally going to become a “real man” and all that that entailed I suppose.

God help me.

Now, as I’m sure everyone will recall with some level of disdain, at this time lasts year people were more or less focused on hoarding any and all materials from toilet paper and hair dye to, yes, building and crafting supplies. While  this would usually enough to stop me in my tracks, I instead decided to really apply the “get ‘er done” philosophy of the true Do-it-Yourself-er and create my own “hybrid” workbench out of reclaimed and repurposed materials that I would scrounge up from worksites through the normal work day for that real “backyard hillbilly” look and feel. 

Included among this hoi polloi of materials were the remnants of our old picnic table, a wooden shipping pallet, a pair of metal brackets that I hauled out of the basement of an abandoned rat-infested restaurant, and some random scrap wood that an area builder was only too happy to get rid of and, over the course of the afternoon, I managed to cobble myself together that complete train wreck of a workbench that you see up there at the top of the page.

Who’s your daddy?

To further accentuate it’s, shall we say, “uniqueness”, I sourced out an old railway cart to place underneath it as a secondary shelf and with which to move around all the soil and gardening shit for our never-to-be future garden, as well as one of the hanging display baskets from an old ice cream cooler that Kelly could use to carry around all her gardening tools.

How very kitsch, amiright?

And while I realize that this is exactly the kind of thing that would give Mike Holmes a heart attack, I was proud of my efforts … as ugly and simply as they may be.  Likewise, I’m not really sure what kind of man this has supposedly transformed me into (I certainly don’t feel any different) but it was a very cathartic at a time when I was only first beginning to understand the extent of my own pent-up COVID-related anxieties.

The real miracle on this day is that I managed to somehow NOT maim, disfigure, or otherwise cause myself any serious bodily harm. 

As I’ve already discussed, I am no Bob Vila (click HERE).

Shit, I’m not even certain that I’m even fit to lace the creepy “Canadian Tire Guy”s work shoe laces.

(Seriously, that guy ate peoples souls for breakfast)

Let’s just say that when it comes to power tools, I’m about as unpredictable and dangerous as a gorilla with a hockey stick but, still, on this particular day I managed to build myself a workbench, and despite it being a complete abomination to workbenches everywhere, I was very happy to have finally crossed this important DIY Rubicon.

Of course, I had no serious aspirations that it would ever last any serious length of time and I half expected City officials to come by and condemn it by the end of the week.  In truth, I fully expected that over the coming months the continuous onslaught of heat, rain, snow and bird shit would absolutely ruin my poor Frankenbench as rot worked it way through it faster than the coronavirus through a seniors center.

(Too soon?)

Surely, come next Springtime, all that would be left of it would be a pile of rotted wood but, alas, here it is nearly one year later having survived a rather harsh and brutal winter:

Verdict:  it’s still a piece of shit … but it’s a standing piece of shit!

Yes, it’s a little worse for the wear, but it all just serves to add more ‘character’ to my crowning achievement in master work-working; a testament to my overall naivete, as well as my unwavering stubbornness.  And, yes, it is likely that our soon-to-be new neighbours will consider this to be the ultimate eye sore that they will inevitably have to stare at outside their living room window, but that as they say, is their problem. 

As it is currently, it’s my hodge podge patchwork COVID masterpiece; a monument to a very difficult and challenging period in my life.  Where the ancient Chinese have their “Great Wall”, and the Egyptians have their “Great Pyramids” — I now have my “Great Frankenbench” … especially now having weathered the test of time.

Haters gonna hate.

So what continued plans do I have for my illustrious backyard Frankenbench?

Well, nothing … yet.

I mean, I might actually put some shit on it in the near future, or not … but if I do, it will definitely be “manly” shit now that I have earned that apparent divine privilege.

God help me.