Mixed Plate: Coffee and Brinner on a Midwinter's Night

Breakfast for Dinner equals...Brinner. It's a fact. It's like New Math, it's so factual. And I highly recommend it. You  know what else I recommend? Someone else making it. On a particularly brisk winter's night (and by brisk I mean freakin' freezing), Mr. Wasabi rolled up his sleeves and cooked up a simple, but elegant dinner of pancakes, bacon and eggs. Brinner, it's what's for Dinner.

Baby, it's oh-so-cold outside - Photo by Wasabi Prime

We were chillin' like a villain with Bob Dylan, it was so cold. The icicles were forming on the trees and it's a nice change of pace from complicated festive meals to have something as simple as eggs n' bacon for dinner. I first heard about Brinner from the television series Scrubs, and I don't know if they made it up, but it's a pretty good idea. Honestly, when does a nice hearty breakfast not totally hit the spot? There's a reason why Dennys serves their Grand Slams twenty four-seven. And it's not complicated because you figure, most kitchens will likely have the basics -- eggs and milk, along with the core baking ingredients like flour and baking soda. Or just a big box of Bisquick you bought on your last Costco trip thinking, "Oh yeah, I'll go through this." So what if the box is stamped "good until 2005." It's dry goods. It's probably fine...?

Mr. Wasabi has ample poms and brinner-making talents - Photos by Wasabi Prime

For the rest of us who don't have the giant monolith of Bisquick, you can find a basic pancake batter mix online; I recommend hitting up the usual suspects like Epicurious.com. I'm not even going to try and guess where the recipes came from, since Mr. Wasabi was the ringleader behind this meal and I was extremely grateful for that. When you're cooking almost every meal, it's such a nice thing to have someone prepare something for you. Plus it really was flippin' cold outside, so hot pancakes sounded incredibly good, especially when they've got a hearty sear from bacon fat! Apparently Brock reserved the pan drippings after cooking the bacon and didn't waste a delicious drop.

Turkish coffee is less of a Caf-Pow, and more of a Caf-KO - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Breakfast and/or Brinner is not complete without coffee. We've been fawning over our latest new addition to the kitchen gadget gang -- a pretty brass Turkish coffee mill from -- of all places -- the land of Turkey. Our friend Ms. SJBe returned from her latest global jaunt and returned with spices and all the jewels of Araby. Well, maybe not that exactly, but I'm doubtless she joined the ranks of most holiday travelers who got jiggy with TSA folks at the airports. To that, all I can say is, I hope they at least buy you dinner before the rubber gloves come on.

Turkish coffee is particularly nice if you're not a big coffee drinker but a big legalized stimulant fan. It's so sweet, it's really like a dessert drink, and the stuff is literally rocket fuel, packing the punch of a steel fist, but in a velvet glove. It's sparingly served in a small demitasse cup, like a shot of espresso. A bit like the analog version of espresso, except instead of the java jolt being extracted through steam, Turkish coffee is superfine grounds percolating in hot water just like regular coffee, but the grounds are allowed to settle before drinking. I don't have the method down-pat, as Mr. Wasabi makes it, but you can peek here to see how people on WikiHow make it. The intake method of Turkish coffee lends itself more to slow, relaxed sipping and not shotgunning the little cup back like a Roman fratboy, otherwise you'll get a mouthful of superfine coffee sludge. We can learn a lot from the Turks. Sit with your supercharged, supersweetened coffee. Enjoy. And then wait patiently for the caffeine to let your mind part the fabric of time, space and dimension.

It's still cold and Indy still begs for Brinner - Photos by Wasabi Prime