1 pound top round steak, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 large bell pepper, cut in strips
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/2 onion, sliced into strips
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon chili powder

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Throw in the round steak, bell pepper and onion. Pour the tomato sauce and water over all, and season with garlic, cumin and chili powder. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Dump on scrambled eggs and watch the turtle smile.

So as you can see, it kinda fucking sucked when I moved away and lost all that great food. I know we make fun of Del Taco and Taco Bell but really, fuck that stuff. That's just garbage food. Something like methadone to a junkie. I had lost it all. The high was gone. Just eat crap Mexican food to survive or having to pay 20 bucks a plate for "Authentic Ethnic Food." Fuck that. I had lost it and resigned myself to eat shitty soft tacos covered in hot sauce to mask the flavor.

Then one day I was woken up by some girl tweaking on video games all night. Something about fresh oysters. They look like vaginas. We need to get some and eat fresh vaginas. Ok, weirdo. We need to put the pipe down and get into this thing called "sleep" and leave the turtle the fuck alone. Normally I would have said "Hey dude. That's fucking weird." But it was a girl and she had the money. So I went. I had no clue where we were going. We just stopped the car in a really bad part of town. The streets were closed by the police. Shake the turtle head. "What are we doing here?" Something's going on here and you need to keep focused. I slammed a beer and crushed it after we got out of the car. Walked under a fence. These were the projects. What in the hell we were doing in the projects? Why are we here? Really slowly I asked her what the hell was going on. "Sunday street fair!" I wasn't aware that selling crack cocaine was now considered a fair, but oh well. I was still trying to wake up. We wandered thru the projects at seven in the morning. It really wasn't that bad. I mean they had kiddie pools all over. I have a thing for kiddie pools so if you got one, you are cool by me.

I got off track again.

I do that.

We got thru the projects with no problem. Walking closer and closer to the freeway. This is getting weird. People were everywhere. Walking thru the parks and down the street. Hell, it was only seven. What the hell are these people doing up? More people. More cops. Then I turned the corner and saw what was going on. Underneath the overpass of the freeway, hundreds of people had gathered to buy food and other stuff in a market. Oh. I get it now. Sunday street market. See, one thing you have to learn, mein readers, sometimes I'm kinda slow. So she went off and did some kind of shopping. Fuck if I know. I was hungry. I asked someone where the nearest food place was and he pointed me off in the distance. "Best food I will ever have." My ass. If it's over a block away, I'll just eat this carrot from this nice looking Asian woman. Might help my eyesight. No, fuck that. Ask someone else, turtle.

I asked someone else and they pointed me to the same area. I asked someone else. Same area. I didn't know that area but these people all did. Ok. I'll walk there. I got about a block in when everything started to turn warehouse grey. This must be a joke. Trucks were speeding by me. Last cigarette and I'm there. A hidden away trucker dive in the shipping area of five different trucking companies. Well this was going to be good. A trucker's dive restaurant. Just put my asshole on a top and pull the string cause I'm spinning with joy!

That was sarcasm, if you didn't get it.

I grabbed a seat at a table and looked around. Dive. Oh well. Grimy green walls. Closed at two in the afternoon. Yeah. Trucker's dive. The menu was pretty standard. One egg. Two egg with meat. One egg with rice. Don't ask me about that one. You get the idea. But as I surveyed the scene I noticed a chalkboard. It had a few words on it. And those words were held in my heart for years waiting for this moment. Waiting to explode out in joy and satisfaction.

"Chicana Omelette. Sunday Only."

Oh fuck yeah! Here we go! Gimmie one of those fast! Gimmie rooster sauce! Gimmie two extra tortillas! Gimmie a large coke then leave me the fuck alone and don't tell me how to eat it!

The food was served and the wenches were dispensed. I ate it. Savoring every bite. The rooster sauce made my eyes bleed. I put so much on it was hard to breathe. This was what I wanted. This was what I craved. After every bite another memory from my childhood came back. Gramma lighting a cigarette. Another bite. Grandpa passing out. Another bite. His rose garden. Another bite. The kids playing in the street.

This was what it was all about.

This was heaven.

This was home.

Memories and spicy foods all rolled up into a chili meat sauce and dumped over eggs.

I had found it.

I had won. - T

Michele's take

Sunday breakfast. Hell yea. Good topic.

Breakfast is cool in and of itself. It’s my favorite meal. So much so that sometimes I eat breakfast for lunch. Or dinner. That’s what diners are made for. You can eat breakfast any time you want. Hell, sometimes I will get tired of cooking the same old shit for dinner and I’ll just whip up a batch of my world famous (ok, house-famous) pancakes and some scrambled eggs and bacon and everyone’s happy.

But there’s something about Sunday breakfast. Especially when you go out to eat on a Sunday morning. It’s like Sunday mornings were meant for huge, greasy, high cholesterol, fatty, starchy artery clogging meals. You owe it to yourself. Your week was hard. The weekend sucked cause it rained the whole time. Monday is coming up. Let’s kill this bad week karma with food. Lots of it. Made by someone else and cleaned up by someone else.

The choices for Sunday morning breakfast around here are many, but only a few even deserve consideration. McDonalds? Burger King? Not even close. Egg McMuffins are for days when all I have is a handful of change and a desire to fall asleep at my desk. There’s something in an Egg McMuffin that triggers my sleep mode. And Burger King food just sucks in general.

There’s the buffet. But come on. Have you ever been to a Sunday morning breakfast buffet? I have. And I spent all my time just gawking at the people rather than eating. It’s not like I could get near the food, anyhow. I would have needed a tank and a small army to move those gluttonous fuckers away from the biscuits and gravy. So I just had chocolate milk and jello and watched in horror as some 800 lb woman piled her plate up with bacon, sausage and ham and then poured white gravy and syrup all over it. It was Mount Heart Attack and she was about to climb it. Some little kid came up to her crying something about “mamma I need some orange juice,” but I think she ate him. Either that or he got swallowed up in the folds of her enormous house dress. Because he just disappeared. And I swore off buffets after that.

There’s the diner. The good old New York Diner. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Never closed, not even on holidays. And they serve breakfast all the time. 3am on a Thursday and you’re dying for blueberry waffles or a Greek omelette? Hit the diner. But be warned. Sunday mornings at the diner? You’re gonna wait for a table. Just prepare for this. I bring quarters because there’s a game in the lobby where you can play Galaga and I kill time by killing flying space bug things.

Diners have the usual stuff. Omelettes. Eggs. Bacon. Pancakes. Waffles. French Toast. Nothing too fancy. I usually get two eggs over easy, home fries, rye toast and well done bacon. Really, I don’t vary much. It’s what I like. What I don’t like is waiting for the waitress to find time to pour me a second, third, fourth, cup of coffee. This is why I usually bypass the diner on a Sunday morning. If you’re too busy to get me more coffee, you’re too busy for me to eat there. There’s only one solution to the coffee dilemma, really.

IHOP. International House of Fucking Pancakes. Ok, IHOFP, then. Oh yea, you are going to wait a long time for a table on a Sunday morning. There will be screaming kids and hung over ravers and crabby senior citizens all waiting for you but you can smell the food. You can see it. You stare at the people eating and look at their dishes piled high with the food of the gods and you wait. You tolerate the noisy kids and the cursing teenagers and the farting grandfather because you know what awaits you inside. All hail the IHOP breakfast menu.(pdf).

Country griddle pancakes. Crab meat omelette. Swedish crepes. Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity. Yea, I know. I think the people at IHOP just get a kick out of making you say that. But dude. Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Pancakes with fruit. WITH FRUIT! And whipped cream. You're getting like every single food group there. How can it be unhealthy. You are following the official food guidelines of the FDA! (Or maybe I mean the food pentgram, not pyramid)

Oh. God. The stuffed French Toast. FOODGASM! Yes, this is like an orgasm in your mouth. And I don't mean someone having an orgasm in your mouth. Because that can be cool, but it's not all that tasty. What I mean is, it's like your mouth explodes in sensual, orgasmic pleasure when you eat this stuff. French Toast. Cream cheese filling. Sugar. Whipped Cream. And a bunch of meat. How the hell can you go wrong with this? Sure you'll want to sleep the sleep of the dead about 30 minutes later and there will be fat leaking from your pores and your heart will feel like a fist is clenching it tight, but sweet jesus does it taste good.

And the coffee. They are smart. They give you the whole pot. So you don't have to wait for a refill. Just keep pouring. Drinking. Pouring. Eating. Shoving the food back fast because you can't wait to get to the next bite. Everyone sharing what they have. I'll give you some of my French Toast if you let me taste your German Omelette. And you. That omelette smothered in cheese and chili. Gimme some. Trade you a strip of bacon for a sausage. I need more bacon here, STAT! Give me some of those chocolate chip pancakes. NOW! Throw some boysenberry syrup on that sucker and you have dessert at 9am. Wash it all down with a giant chocolate milk.

Your whole day is taken care of. You've had food that spanned the day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one. You go home satisfied, fulfilled and bloated. You take off your pants and get back into bed and let your stomach expand with all the salt and fat you just filled it with. Sleep it off and dream about pigs and chickens chasing you through a field of blueberry bushes. When you wake up, it's late Sunday afternoon and you need Tums and about six gallons of water. You swear to never, ever do this again but you know damn well that a few Sundays from now your phone will ring at 8am and it will be your sister whispering "IHOP" into your ear and you know. You're getting out of bed. You will battle the screaming kids and surly waitress because the stuffed French Toast is calling you.

[note: all pics were taken by my on my last outing to IHOP. which was too long ago] - M

So that was our early morning take on for the day. Yes, we still go to these places and yes, we still get heartburn. But, we really do want to know, what do you eat on Sunday mornings? When you are too tired to turn on the TV and you don't even want to think about anything. When all you wish is for someone to go out and get food for you so you don't have to move.. What do you crave?

What's your favorite?

Faith No More - Easy
Self - Breakfast With Girls