Breakfast isn't my favorite meal--not to eat, not to cook. An adult comes to realize, though, that every meal isn't centered around a single set of needs. Suddenly, I'm in my forties, enjoying brunch on the weekends, often cooking weekdays before I'm really even awake.

I eat pancakes sometimes. Waffles even.

Over summer, everything relaxed in our house--lots of fruit and half meals--but school started last Thursday and Luca and Marco need to go into the world with food that will feed their minds and bodies and allow them to focus all the way up to a 10:30 lunch.
In the spirit of the beginning of the school year, I thought I'd put together my five favorite family breakfasts, to cook and to eat (for others who occasionally struggle with inspiration before the sun rises).
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ONE-EYED BANDITS--Basic (see bottom of recipe for decadent version)
4 slices your favorite bread for toast
4 eggs
2 tablespoons butter
Use a biscuit cutter, or the bottom of a small-circumference glass, to cut one hole in the center of each slice of bread. (If you want to make this one fun for children, use a cookie cutter instead--a heart or a dinosaur or a snowflake on a winter morning.)
Heat the pan over a medium flame; add your butter and melt it.
Place two pieces of toast in the pan of melted butter; crack an egg into the center of each hole. Salt and pepper the egg. Fit the cut-out circles toward the sides of the pan.
Once a solid film of white has formed on the pan-side of your cooking egg, flip the toast and egg together. Flip your bread circles as well. Drizzle all of the bread with honey as the egg finishes cooking.
About two minutes to completion.
***This is the easy kind. If you want to up this recipe to a more luxurious level, for a Sunday brunch, say, then:
Use brioche or Texas toast, and dip it in a French toast batter (3 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 1/2 cup heavy cream, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 cup sugar). Start the toast about 2 minutes before you drop the egg in the center. Serve with syrup and butter.

BAKED OATMEAL (This is my favorite go-to breakfast on winter mornings. Easy. Fruit, fiber, and protein--gives kids lots of healthy energy that carries them easily to lunch time)
3 cups oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cups raisins
Mix all, bake in bread pan 40 minutes.
Set aside: yogurt, favorite fruits or berries.
Serve hot out of oven, cut into thick portions. Pour vanilla yogurt (Greek honey-vanilla is my favorite) over the top as though you're frosting a very decadent cinnamon roll. Top with fruit.

BANANA ENGLISH MUFFINS (just an easy Bonanno family favorite)
1 banana
2 English muffins
2 tablespoons butter
honey
Heat toaster oven to 350.
Separate English muffins into halves, and thinly shave butter over the tops (so that the surfaces are covered)
Thinly slice bananas and cover the shaved butter with them.
Drizzle abundantly with butter (and lightly dust with cinnamon if so inclined)
Toast on "dark" setting.
Serve with scrambled eggs and juice (for kids), or just a cup of really dark coffee (for you), or just before bed with warm milk (for everybody)

OLD FASHIONED PANCAKES
Mix all wet ingredients first:
1/2 cup barely melted butter
1 egg
2 3/4 cups buttermilk (OR 1 1/4 cups milk plus 1 1/2 cups unsweetened yogurt; OR 2 2/3 cup milk plus 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar [any vinegar will do, I just like the flavor of apple cider here])

Then, sift the dry ingredients over the wet:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon sugar
Stir until everything is just barely mixed together. Don't worry about lumps. The more aggressively you mix the wet and dry ingredients, the more tiny strands of gluten will form, making for tough chewy cakes. I usually count ten times around the bowl with the spoon, then set it down, even if there are lumps.

Couple of tips about cooking pancakes:
1. I prefer an iron skillet, so that I can flip them with a good sturdy metal spatula.
2. Set the flame on medium, and heat the pan first. Put just enough butter to make your cooking surface shiny, about a teaspoon if you're using an iron skillet. Any more butter and you won't get that nice fluffiness.
2. Use a ladle, whether big or small, so the pancakes are evenly sized and cook at the same rate.
3. The trick to knowing when to flip a pancake is to look for little bubbles to form. So: ladle the batter in, then step away (I'll get the coffee going about now). In about 3 minutes the pancake surfaces will start to break with little bubbles. Once you see more than three or four bubbles, flip the cake. If you're putting chips (white chocolate are my favorite) or berries in, do it now, just before the flip (that way, they just barely warm through instead of disappearing entirely).
4. Finally, when we make this recipe for our family of two small boys and two adults, there's always extra. If you have leftover batter--go ahead and cook the whole batch. Pancakes freeze. Then, in a week or two, when you're ready for pancakes again, but not quite in the mood to cook from scratch--just pull out the baggie full of frozen pancakes, and pop them in the toaster oven (or oven) for about 7 minutes at 350.

STICKY APPLES
3 cups cored, peeled, sliced apples (a little less than 1/4 inch thick)
2 cups orange juice
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
Place apples and orange juice in skillet over medium flame.
Bring juice to a nice bubble, then add the butter.
Once butter melts, add brown sugar.
Stir occasionally, allowing liquid to reduce by more than half.
Once apples are cooked through (we call these "sticky" because at this point, most of the liquid is gone. The sugar and apple starch have thickened what's left into something you have to kind of scrape off the bottom of the pan), serve in a bowl with a touch of milk, next to a poached egg and a slice of whole grain toast.

(In the spirit of disclosure: Anthony Bourdain & Me at Mizuna)

I had a phenomenal vacation. I cooked for people I love every night in what can only be described as a magical setting; I spent a ton of time in the ocean with my sons (we line caught crabs together every morning, fished for mussels, surfed, swam, built castles)--but you know what took this vacation just a rating beyond "great?" I got to read. I read all the time—trade journals, food magazines, cookbooks—but I do so on a treadmill, or in my office, or in the bathroom--so to really just sit back and read two full novels, well, that was some vacation. Since these two books from my phenomenal vacation have salted my conversations and thoughts recently, and I wanted to write about What I Read on My Summer Vacation.

The first was Devil in the Kitchen, a gift from the Bones’ chef, Jared. I’d heard of Marco Pierre White and his legend my whole career. I’d read Gordon Ramsey’s view of him (last year’s vacation), and I wanted to see White’s side of those stories. What would he want to convey to readers? Was he really such a bastard?

Yes. Turns out this guy is not likable, and from chapter one he takes a great deal of pride pointing it out. His own words define him as someone who’s never done a kind thing for anyone except Marco Pierre White. I kept reading, though. People worked for this guy for years; they must have liked his training methods, what he brought to their careers. He must have inspired them. I was hoping White would reveal himself to be one of those secretly awesome coaches that nurtures his progeny—I’d love to get insight from a chef like that. Turns out he’s this lonely guy that beats people down to rise. Imagine how awful it must be to think that you’re the only one in the world who really cares? A line cook complains of heat—and White knifes ventilation holes in his chef whites (there’s a photo of the shredded jacket in the book). Cooks actually pass out from the heat and work conditions in the kitchen—White has their bodies dragged outside and dumped in the parking lot. He takes undeniable satisfaction in the inhumane. From reading Devil in the Kitchen, I came to understand that White really was a brilliant coach—of the Bobby Knight ilk. A general of the old school. What I liked about his writing was that it reaffirms the ingredients for success: focus, drive, determination and consistency. But the book was a clear juxtaposition to, say, Setting the Table or The Making of a Chef, in which Danny Myers and Michael Ruhlman achieve focus, drive, consistency—through completely opposite means. I like to think that the glory days of maintaining those standards through fear are over.

My second read was a lot more fun, though the figure is just as controversial: Medium Raw, by Anthony Bourdain. I read it on my Father’s Day nook, which was a gift of love, so maybe I went into the read with a more loving attitude-- because I really, really, enjoyed reading it. Is it the most influential piece of food writing I’ve read? –No. Just a good solid set of essays from someone who’s stood in my clogs and vocalizes a lot of my own beliefs. I like that Bourdain acknowledges his limits in the kitchen, and roots those limits in drugs and alcohol. He devotes chapters to the notion of selling out— how mouths need to be fed in the wake of success--wives, children, talented staff who have to grow—and I agree that at some point “selling out” is actually just growing up and thinking beyond yourself. Providing for those you love. Although he calls this book a “bloody valentine,” my favorite chapter so intricately details the exquisite fish butchery of Justo Thomas that the style could only be described as “lovingly”—a valentine in the real, traditional sense. While Devil in the Kitchen took me a week to slog through, I read Medium Raw in just a couple days—maybe because I so wholeheartedly agreed with point after point—John Mariani; the impact of substance abuse on the industry, the beauty and mystery of figures like David Chang and Grant Aschatz. I see Bourdain as an Advocate for the Cook, because he admires chefs who raise the bar, and disdains “talent” that lowers it. Bourdain can say out loud what so many of us are thinking, and that act strengthens his career rather than sabotaging it. I live vicariously through reading Bourdain’s words. White’s made me die a little inside.

I'm pretty one-dimensional. The life I lead is kitchen centered, the books I read are food focused. That’s where my passion is; I can relate to the material intimately; I like to be informed; I like to be current; I like to be inspired. Omnivore's Dillema took me two vacations to read, but it changed the way I view the food world and my role in it. So, when I have time to relax, I do so with material that I hope will be transformative. Are you a cook? What reading inspired you? What work transformed your career, peppered your thoughts and conversations? I'd love to start planning my Christmas reading. . .

--Hunter and Pig

[Stage: pronounced “stAHj”—intense, brief training period, usually with no pay, to prepare on for work in one’s intended field (in our case, cooking)]

I’m calling Diego Cordosa this weekend to explain myself, and I’m using this blog as a means to organize my thoughts. See, I’m trying to place Hunter, from Luca, at Murano to stage, and chef Cordosa wants to know why. Why send an employed adult--a long-time cook, a graduate of culinary school, an already polished chef--all the way to London to work his ass off for two weeks with no pay? What are we hoping to get from such an experience?

I think about what I got out of those experiences, the ones I had my first decade or so out of culinary school—crossing the country, staying in the seediest motels and finding myself peeling and dicing quince for twelve straight hours, or breaching the tests of sea urchins until their spines and my hands were one. Filleting fish. Boning chickens. And there it is: as I write this, I remember those basic tasks vividly, perfectly, more so than the breakfast I had this morning. The most profoundly shaping moments of my career have been the short periods of time I spent totally immersed in someone else’s kitchen. It is time spent beyond prestige or money or titles. A working stage is purely about cooking. Watching cooking, listening to instructions on cooking, discussing cooking—actually cooking.

When I arrived at Fellicin and Sons, I was awed, scared, nervous—not least because I didn’t speak a word of Italian. It was o.k., though, because everyone there spoke Food. We began each morning making bread--in a kitchen with no measuring cups or recipes. Instead of following written directions, I learned what the dough should feel like pressed against the palm of my hand--how the elasticity and shine change with the humidity, and how a perfect dough should stretch and react when I touch it. That bread was beautiful.

I learned about the human machinery of a kitchen. When the time came to set up my own lines, I adapted the culinary-intensive systems I saw at Gramercy, Danielle, and Le Bernardin, systems in which each cook prepares by day exactly what his station will produce during service: a hot appetizer station, a meat cook, a saucier (stocks and butchering), a fish cook, a garde managr (cold apps, salads), a dessert cook, and a chef de cusisine (runs line and picks up a few items). At Mizuna, seven people cook dinner for a dining room that seats 50. For perspective, six people cook the line at Maggiano's, which seats 200 people.

I am the chef I am--my restaurants are what they are--because of my time in those professional kitchens. Even at this point in my life and career, I work stages, and I would kill to spend time again at the French Laundry or Tailevent.

The system that has come back to me tenfold. I’m lucky that on any given night at least two stages are working to experience the Luca and Mizuna kitchens. Even better: I’m lucky enough that chefs at these venues go forth and test their own chops around the country and the world.

How awesome is that? Professionals who never settle on their own skill set--who continually want to see and be part of something new and different. Their creativity doesn't die a sweaty death in a stale kitchen, because they feed it by exploring different techniques and flavors,venturing out and returning with an extra polish and enthusiasm that comes from witnessing different philosophies at play, different techniques in use.

This system is worth every penny and every mile and every moment to me, to the cooks who test it, to the restaurants who get those chefs on their lines, to the cities where those chefs will open their own restaurants.

But chef Cordosa knows all of this--he's well familiar with the stage system. What am I hoping Hunter will get out of a stage at Murano? What am I hoping to get out of it?

I am hoping that Hunter will work even harder for you than he does for me. I am hoping that his time with you will re-affirm the time he’s spent at Luca.

I am hoping that Hunter will be tested, inspired, revived—and that he will return from London with an even stronger sense of pride for what we’re accomplishing right here in Denver. I am hoping that he will be inspired, that his inspiration will spread all through the Luca kitchen--

And right back around to me.

Every summer my family, and I mean my whole family—brothers, sisters, parents; my children, their children—get together beach-side to play and laugh and drink and eat. I cook almost every night (it’s how I express myself), usually fish that my father catches in the morning, simple pastas with fresh ingredients, sometimes just really good burgers. But one night—the night that usually ends up being my favorite of the whole vacation-- we devote to lobster. Fresh lobster trapped just that morning, purchased from the fishmonger up the road. God, I love lobster. It’s one of my favorite foods—I think because it’s such a perfect vehicle for butter. I love the claws, rich and velvety.
We cook it at home, too, probably twice a month, and always on Monday nights so the whole family takes part—the boys separating the claws and tails from the body, Jacqueline working on the salad, all of us around the butcher block with aprons and knives. I shared this with a friend of mine recently who couldn’t believe we spend that kind of money and go to all that trouble for a Monday night dinner.
Two myths are at play there: one, lobster is not all that expensive (halibut’s about $14 a pound at the store right now; tuna’s $18—lobster goes for $11) and two it’s really, really easy to make. Here’s how:

Source it: In Denver, I always use one of the Asian markets—my favorites are Pacific Ocean on Alameda or Pacific Mercantile on Federal. I liken choosing a lobster to choosing fresh vegetables—look for vibrant color and a medium to small size, because a larger body usually indicates less flavor and tougher texture. While looking in the tanks, try to pick a lively, moving fella. When he’s lifted from the water, his flippers should flip defensively; a good weight is between 1¼ and 1¾ pounds. Once you procure your lobsters bring them home for the carnage and feasting.

Killing the lobster: the quickest way is to use a good, sharp knife and remove his head. The claws and the tail cook at different rates, so it doesn’t make sense to plunge the entire thing into a pot of boiling water.

Cooking: You will need: a timer, two 1-gallon pots, one 2-gallon pot (preferably double boilers), and a clean sink full of ice water. (sounds like a lot of big pots, but the process couldn’t be simpler). Set two gallons lightly salted water on high heat. While the water is coming up to temperature, separate the claws from the body—use a towel for a good grip and just pull them right off . Set the claws in one empty gallon pot. Remove the tail the same way—just twist/break it right off—and put it in a separate empty one gallon pot. You can discard the body, though I always use it for stock (I’ll address lobster stock in another posting!)
Your water should be near boiling about now—once it hits a full, rapid boil, pour the water over the claws in the one bucket (covering by 2-3 inches) and the tails in the other (covering by 2-3 inches). At this point, set your timer: if you have a 1¼ pound lobster, let the water sit over the tail for 6 minutes and the claws for 8 (8 minutes for tails and 10 for claws if the lobster is 1¾ pounds).
When the timer goes off, plunge the meat in iced water to stop the cooking. Let them rest for a couple of minutes until cooled. Remove from water, repeat for claws.

Time to remove the shells: The easiest way is to take a simple pair of kitchen shears and cut right through the bottom of the tail. Use your hands to spread the shell apart from either side and the meat should fall right out. For the claws, use the back of a knife to crack the claw shells, and then remove the shell from the meat along the crack lines (the way you’d remove a shell from a cracked hard-boiled egg)

Now serve: the lobster meat is about medium-rare at this point—perfect for simply dipping in warm butter & or lemon, or tossing into a buttered linguine. If you decide to refrigerate and re-heat later, just toss the meat in warm bubbly butter and heat just through—a minute or two.

I should probably take back what I said about lobster not being too expensive, because I approach it with a glutton’s eye—I always buy at least one for every person who’s eating, even if that person weighs 45 pounds. When we’re at the shore, we sit on the dock afterwards, cocktails perched on swollen bellies, kids running and laughing with butter slicked faces in the setting sun. I go back into the kitchen from time to time, illuminated by the light of the open fridge, enjoying just one more claw. No dessert tonight, thank you. Just one more claw . . .

There was a family dining at Luca recently and the parents were thoughtful enough to bring in chicken nuggets for their child. Heartbreaking.

My sons try everything, not just because I’m a good cook, but because the meal we offer them is their only option. This week, in fact, we’ve had amazing variety at our house.

Sunday after the hockey game (as heartbreaking as chicken nuggets in a nice Italian restaurant), we all worked together in the kitchen toward blackened mahi-mahi sandwiches. Luca mixed up both tartar and cocktail sauces (his own secret recipes—I can’t even direct him anymore) and Marco ripped the lettuce, sliced the veggies, and helped with the salad dressing. Turns out that if they get to season the protein we’re cooking, they’re much more liable to be adventurous with spice—so they helped blacken the fish. Jacqueline made the margaritas, and it was great fun because we were all tasting and cooking and talking and eating together.

We followed up Monday with a trip to Pacific Ocean Market—a place filled with those funky, pungent smells, crazy utensils, candy wrappers in every language. We left 2 hours later with too much stuff including 5 lobsters and a Peking duck with the head still on. God, I love lobster. Who doesn’t? It’s just a vehicle for butter. Anyway, for Monday's lobsterfest, Luca sliced the mushrooms for the big fat udon noodles—Marco put the shells and seasoning into a pot of water for the broth (lots of playing with the claws), Jacqueline sautéed the snow peas, and I cooked the lobsters. I gotta say I’m proud that at 6 and 8 years the boys know how to handle a sharp knife in the kitchen.

Tuesday we went for the Peking duck. I thought Luca and Marco might be put off by the head, but even after I pulled a Christmas Story move and whacked it off in front of them, they loved every bite. Consumed the entire three pounds (with mashers and curried cauliflower) in one sitting (I only got a measly leg).

The point is, my kids—all kids—want and need a real variety of real food. I make a Kraft mac and cheese from time to time; we always have hot dogs in the house--and I confess to a once a year Chef Boy Ardee binge—but it’s all offered in context of variety. If we don’t cow tow to childish whims (we are supposed to be the adults, after all), they will follow their natural curiosity—and hunger—to venture into different flavors readily.

And they will never want, or expect, chicken nuggets in a restaurant.