Talya Tate Boerner - grace grits and gardening

Toad in the Hole – Redefined!

November 25, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

(this post is sponsored by Great Day Farms…)When my daughter was young, Saturday morning often meant a Toad in the Hole for breakfast. It was one of her favorites. You know the basic drill—cut a hole in a piece of (plain, white) bread with a cookie cutter, fry an egg inside the hole and voila(!) toast and egg all in one tidy, whimsical package.

Smoked Gruyere and Arugula - Toad in a Hole - Redefined!

Last weekend for a quick lunch, I elevated the Toad in a Hole to a sandwich with pumpernickel, smoked gruyere and arugula. Even with this fancied-up twist, it was still a five minute meal and perfect for a rainy fall day.

Ingredients
(1 sandwich)

2 slices pumpernickel
1-2 slices smoked Gruyere (the slices in the picture are small…)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 egg
arugula
sea salt
pepper

Method

With a cookie cutter, cut a hole in the center of one slice of bread. (I used this vintage cookie cutter I bought at Curiosities in East Dallas. If you’re looking for vintage anything—I recommend Curiosities.)

Melt butter in a cast iron skillet on medium heat.

When butter has melted, begin browning both pieces of bread.

Crack open the egg into the slice with the hole. Let cook for a couple of minutes.

This makes me smile:)

When the bottom of the egg begins to set, carefully break the yolk then flip the bread to cook the other side. Flip the other slice of bread and top the browned side with cheese. When the cheese begins to melt, top with arugula.

flipped egg…

Sprinkle cheese with sea salt and pepper (optional) and top with the egg slice of bread, hole facing up.

Toad in the Hole – Redefined!

That’s it.

You could easily substitute any type of bread or cheese. Very yummy.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

smell of old books

November 24, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

morguefile

Stacked in the far corner—dusty,
musty and ignored—an
entire world awaits at only fifty cents each.
Leave me while I
linger
over brittle, yellowed pages filled with
fanciful words, forgotten fonts.
Outdated tales
languish, longing to be rediscovered beneath
durable covers
bound by history. Yes, I’m
obsessed. Whose fingers touched these pages? I inhale the
odor of linseed and ink and paper and coffee. A
keyhole to yesterday. The
smell of time.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

“It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”
― C.S. Lewis

This post was written especially for Write Tribe prompt: smell of old books…

Bear Down Baylor

November 23, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

The year I graduated from high school, Mike Singletary led Baylor to the Cotton Bowl. I took that as a good sign.

Mike Singletary

When Harry and Nancy Wooten invited me to Waco to visit their son (my boyfriend), I watched the impressive homecoming bonfire and knew it was the college for me. Plus Grant Teaff’s worm story intrigued me beyond anything I had ever heard.

At Christmas break, I vacated my Arkansas State dorm room, loaded up my yellow corvette and headed west. Although things didn’t work out with the boyfriend, I am forever grateful he connected me to Baylor.

Pat Neff

Today I should be Christmas shopping. Or brining a turkey. Or something. But I cannot do or plan one single productive thing until Baylor beats OSU tonight. (I did dig out my gold pom-pom and Baylor face tattoos, so that’s something.)

Until recently, Baylor fans have endured less than stellar seasons. We were the butt of every Southwest Conference joke, even worse than the time-worn Aggie cracks. Schools vied to play us for homecoming game. Yet still we cheered and proudly yelled h-e-e-e-e-y sic ’em bears! at every opportunity.

My sister and me with our 1980-something hair. Ready for game day!

I graduated and moved to Dallas.

I worked in banking.

I got married, had two kids, divorced, worked even more, remarried…

Life flew by. Friday nights were spent at high school games. We made occasional road trips to Waco for Baylor games.

I learned to be satisfied if the bears simply showed up and didn’t embarrass me. We only lost by ten points? That’s a win in my book, I’d say…Coping skills—something learned at Baylor right along with macroeconomic theory and the Cotton-Eyed Joe. We limped along hoping for a football team while supporting the school’s other more successful programs…olympic track athletes…amazing basketball teams…

Yet still I waited for football.

I moved my kids into their own dorms, not Baylor, but I was okay with that. Baylor was my special place. Each time I drove to Austin, I stopped at the Bear Pit to chat with the mascots. Will this be our year? Usually the bears were hiding…

Still waiting and aging and waiting and aging…

Then quietly and a bit under the radar, Art Briles breathed life into the program. Robert Griffin III was unstoppable. We began to remember what honest-to-goodness fun felt like, because we’d forgotten, or maybe we never knew.