What's Your Ideal Breakfast Sandwich?

There comes a point in every year, usually near the end of summer, when my life hits terminal velocity. The exact moment might vary by a week or two depending on the year, but without fail, at some point in August or September, I will look up and realize that my calendar is already full until Thanksgiving, if not New Year's. I've felt this acutely this September—my son has started his first season of youth baseball, and that's layered multiple games and practices each week on top of an already-packed schedule of back-to-school activities, college football games, family travel and more. It's been fun stuff, for the most part, but it's also been absolutely exhausting.

(I simply do not understand how parents with multiple kids in multiple sports do it. I know it happens, but I cannot fathom.)

As a result of this calendrical chaos, most of my meals for the last three weeks have been afterthoughts: a sandwich scarfed down during a ten-minute turnaround between work and practice, a bag of trail mix eaten in traffic, a hot dog in the stands. I love cooking, but I haven't had much time to spend in the kitchen lately.

There's still Saturday morning, though. The one clear spot remaining on my schedule, it's a brief moment to rest, regroup, and make exactly what I want to eat.

It's a moment that calls for an elaborate breakfast sandwich.

I have an outsized love for a breakfast sandwich, and I know I'm not alone in that. It's not just a great way to start a day; it's the perfect vehicle for personalized indulgence. There's so many variables (the bread, the egg, the meat, the cheese, toppings, condiments, and so on) that a breakfast sandwich can basically serve as your own individual culinary mission statement. There's no right or wrong—there's only what's right for you.

And that's what I want to know today.

Put yourself in a Saturday morning mindset. You've worked hard all week, and you've absorbed all the horrors of These Times We Live In as you've done it. Now, miraculously, though, you've got a chance to have exactly what you want for breakfast in a hand-held package. What are you putting on it? Are you a croissanwich hedonist, bagel-sandwich bold, or Kaiser roll purist? Do you like your eggs runny or crispy? Is there a vaguely-gross regional meat product you crave?

I want to hear all about it, whether it's something you craft yourself or one you crave from a restaurant.

While you're mulling that over, I gotta kick things off.

Friends, it's Friday once again at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.

I'm all about Saturday morning today, and to prove it, I've got:

• My own stab at breakfast-sandwich glory
• A cocktail that's basically pancakes?
• Some delightfully-weird music
• Your weekend-morning reading list
• A lightning round of other ACBN-certified good things
• ... oh, and of course, The Pets of the Week!

Don't wake me, though—I plan on sleeping in.

That clown has a point, you know

I don't have a recipe today per se, but rather a record of my own breakfast sandwich journey. I wanted to get as much good stuff as I could into a reasonably-sized sandwich, and I had some decisions to make.

The biggest? The bread.

My actual favorite breakfast sandwich is a decidedly-unfancy bacon-egg-and-cheese from any average-good New York City deli, served on the kind of crusty/fluffy Kaiser roll you can seemingly only get in the Tri-State region, a place I have not lived for more than a decade now.

It's the ideal vessel; it's strong enough to stay together (a failing of croissant-based sandwiches) but not so strong as to smush the fillings out the other side (a failing of bagel-based ones.)

Barring the sudden availability of that magic roll west of I-95, though, I'm acknowledging what Ronald McDonald has long known: the English muffin is actually the best bread for a breakfast sandwich. It's soft but sturdy, it keeps your hands clean, and it soaks up anything that's leaking out. I am personally partial to Bays muffins, which outshine anything else widely available in grocery stores.

(Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, Thomas.)

What else, though?

A crispy-on-the-edges, runny-in-the-center fried egg dusted with za'atar is perfection for me, and it's gets a boost of Ohio Valley greatness with a smashburger-style patty of Glier's Goetta, my favorite gross (complimentary) regional meat product. A spicy aioli sneaks under them, sharp cheddar on top. and we're almost there–but it still needs some crunch and some tang. For that, I sauteed some shredded purple cabbage and red onion until soft, then hit with a splash of red wine vinegar in the pan. This quick slaw went on top of the whole assemblage, along with a few stray arugula leaves I had in the crisper drawer.

It might not be the prettiest thing, or the most conceptually-cohesive, but it was exactly what I wanted, and that's the spirit I want you to be in today, too.

Now, for a surprisingly-successful home-bar experiment...

When life gives you weird bananas, make an Old-Fashioned

This drink involves a bit of a journey.