"Good Morning Sunshine..."

   

Over the years we have been lucky enough to take a number of family vacations. Whether a resort, a cruise or a city hotel, one of my favorite meals was always brunch.

   Now,  I’m not normally a person who eats at buffets, but there’s something about the whole vacation atmosphere that’s conducive to a long and leisurely breakfast. No rush to get to work or (at that time) get the kids to school. No quick cooking oatmeal or frozen waffles eaten on the dash to the car. Just a relaxing stroll from the hotel room to the dining room, and more than enough time to peruse all of the breakfast offerings.

   It wasn’t so much the amount of food that we loved, it was the endless array of choices we had that we could never get at home (especially in MY kitchen).

   Having an entire table of fresh fruit already cut up and ready to eat without even having to lift a finger made me crave the healthy stuff even more. I rarely buy mangoes at the grocery store, but of course, I fill my plate with those and other “exotic” choices when they are right there in front of me, ready to eat.

  

And I know it sounds silly, but I always was obsessed with the little individual boxes of cereal available. Particularly when we’d go out of the country and have  “Zucaritas” (or Frosted Flakes) and “Bolas de Chocolate”. Even the oatmeal tasted better; no doubt because it was made with real cream and sugar instead of water in a microwave.

   Of course, the array of breads and pastries on most breakfast buffets would normally send this carb counter running the other way, but the special treats coupled with the fact that I would probably not have the chance to eat something that yummy again for a long time made them definitely worth the calories. However, the absolute BEST part of a breakfast buffet, no matter where we were was the omelet station.

   I tend to be kind of picky about how I like my omelets (half whole egg, half egg white, vegetable spray, well done, light cheese, double flip, etc, etc), so to actually stand right there and tell the chef how I want your food prepared is a joy to me!

    On one of our first trips to Mexico, my then 8-year-old daughter loved the “so-good omelets” as she called them because she could have them plain, which was how she liked them at the time. My husband loves smoked salmon (lox) and would always convince the omelet chef to cook it in to his eggs. I used to love seeing what my growing 6’4’ son used to pile on his plate and how I would try and be “healthy” in my choices, but rarely succeed. I’d stand over the chef annoyingly pointing to the egg whites, and vegetable spray, always insisting they cook the eggs more. Usually they got it perfect by about the 5^th day of vacation, but by then I’d succumbed to the pastries and rolls, so it really didn’t matter any more.

    My husband and I recently returned from a vacation where breakfast was, again, one of our main events of the day. We slept late, worked out, and just took as much time as we wanted at breakfast. The whole vacation was wonderful, but there’s something about those “so good omelets” that makes me want to go back for more!!

    I've tried to recapture that feeling at home but the closest we’ve come to that is making our own omelets.  We’re actually getting closer to the look and taste that those egg magicians create at the breakfast buffets, but  I still think everything tastes much better when someone else makes it for you!