Last night, I watched PBS’s “A Breakfast Special” and it got me thinking about the most memorable breakfasts I’ve had. I LOVE breakfast, but I don’t really have a proper, full breakfast very often. My breakfasts typically involve a small bowl of almond milk and cereal with a side of jammy toast. Usually, full breakfasts are tied to special occasions in my home—birthdays and holidays, but especially my mom’s special Christmas breakfast with the works. Sometimes I’ll bake something up for breakfast and serve it with coffee. For the most part, I stick to the same tried and true breakfast/brunch places. These include South Miami’s Sunset Tavern & Deli Lane, where they have some of the best grits I’ve ever had and the ever delectable “Challah Egg Melt”. It’s a understated, relaxing place to have a fresh-air brunch on a Sunday. John Martin’s is another favorite, lots of fond birthday and lazy Sunday memories there. They make a great full Irish breakfast, and a mean Eggs Benedict and French toast croissant.

Then there’s the Indigo at the Riverside Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, where the brunch menu always changes and they bring your latte with a swizzle stick.

I also have some great memories of croissants at the Vie de France Bakery on Main Street in Miami Lakes, short stacks at the IHOP by the airport, and pancakes at the now dearly departed Joffrey’s. Most of these memories are associated with good company as much as great food… I think a great breakfast companion can make an Egg McMuffin seem like the most memorable breakfast. The last “best” breakfast I had was a short stack and eggs at the Original Pancake House in Doral on a lazy Saturday after an unsuccessful antiquing trip to the flea market. Delicious.

We had some windy spring showers last week and my gran found a perfect little bird’s nest that fell from one of the trees. It is such a cleverly constructed little basket, the tiny twigs woven round and round.

Yesterday, we had another nest-related surprise… the neighborhood hen has been making an awful fuss lately, cackling at all hours and terrifying the cats, turns out she’s been laying eggs. She belongs to someone who lives down the street, but she’s made herself a nice little nest among the trees behind our apartment. We hope the troublesome neighbor kids don’t notice that they’re there… or that the brave rooster gives them a good pecking if they get too close.

Crookshanks (below), Lola, and Kittygirl (the outdoor cat colony) are terribly frightened by the chickens because the feathered beasties scare them away and steal their kibble.

Jack White is the Boogey Man under my bed… or so it seems :p

I was fixing up my room when I spied the corner of a photograph peeking out from under my bed. It was a picture I took at a White Stripes concert ages ago. I’m talking film photograph here, before I ever even owned a proper digital camera… which places this picture somewhere in the pre-2005 era. No idea what it was doing under my bed or how I happened to notice it now.

He’s quite swoon-worthy in this picture, if grainy.

I think it’s time for a little Hotel Yorba.

My b-chan found out that a special exhibit was going to be held this weekend at Aventura Mall in North Miami, so we made a date of it and went off to see the “Royal Crowns of the World” display. It was mostly a marketing ploy for Lakeview Home Accessories, purveyors of fine silverware and porcelain so far as I could tell. Most of the crowns were obvious reproductions, with a few exceptions. Lovely to look at, nevertheless.

These are a few of the ones I liked the most:

And because we were in the area, we took a quick trip to the Krispy Kreme factory to have some piping hot doughnuts. I haven’t been to this place since high school; it never changes. The doughnuts are still sinfully delicious.

My b-chan and I have been meaning to go to the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art to view the Norman Rockwell exhibit for months now, but in typical leave-it-to-the-last-minute fashion, we didn’t get around to going until the last day. As it coincided with the Suntrust Sunday Jazz Brunch on Riverfront, we decided to make a day of it and have lunch/brunch before heading to the museum. The Jazz Brunch was lovely, but we didn’t know what to expect and were unprepared to take advantage of the picnic setting. Next time we can make it, I will definitely plan a picnic. We ended up making our way to the Indigo Restaurant at the Riverside Hotel instead. This is the second time we’ve eaten here and the food has always been great. I think it’s quite possibly one of my favorite places to eat on Las Olas. Plus, they bring you a swizzle stick with your latte… how charming is that?

After brunch, we made our way back to the museum, only to find that the line to purchase tickets was circling the block. One of the guys in line compared it to the lines to go on the rides at Disney. As we’re standing in line, this older man approaches us out of nowhere and asks us where we’re from; this is highly suspicious behavior in South Florida where we are all used to rudeness and the like. He’s waving two tickets and tells us that today is our lucky day. We, of course, think scalpers, though he looked too decent for the usual shifty scalper. My b-chan was waiting for the guy to tell us that he would give us his tickets for $XX, but he just tells us that he received the tickets from his wife’s company for free because they are museum sponsors and that we can have them. Skeptical Miamians that we are, we thought he was joking, but he gave us the tickets and walked away laughing, telling his wife that we wouldn’t believe him. The lady behind us was curious to know if they were real too, but we refused to give up our places in line on the chance that they were authentic.

To our utter astonishment, they were.

When we reached the counter, the lady at the ticket booth told us that we could’ve skipped the line and walked right in. She was just as amazed when we told her our story.

So, to the stranger who gave us these tickets… Thank you and sorry we didn’t believe you.

Every year, the Gables hosts it’s Farmer’s Market and every year, I miss it. Except this year! I finally got to go yesterday and what a treat it was . The b-chan and I arrived while the day was still cool, so we got to wander around among the fully laden produce, flower, and food stalls without the usual midday heat. I bought a small pot of Tropical Fruit Honey and a large starfruit for myself, and a coconut for my mom. Next time, I’ll try to go in the early morning so I can have some breakfast or pick up an early lunch. The food all looked delicious, too bad neither of us was very hungry at the moment.

Here is the Market on the corner of Biltmore Way

Some wonderfully fragrant teas and spices

Beautiful, blooming orchids

fancy macarons from Le Boudoir

and fresh eggs from the farm

After our morning jaunt, we headed off on an hour long drive to Boca to see the “Magical World of M.C. Escher” exhibit at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. Escher is one of my favorite artists; a lot of my work was inspired by his prints when I was in art class, and I have always been fascinated by his tessellations and ability to toy with the viewer’s perception. I was surprised by the breadth of the exhibit and the quantity of prints on display. Many of the pieces were new to me and I really enjoyed seeing a different side of Escher, particularly the Italian landscapes and book prints. The pieces from his office were a neat addition to the exhibit as well, as were the lithograph blocks. My favorite still remains his Three Worlds print, but I loved the Metamorphosis prints and the flower sketches.

The museum also had Mary Cassatt on display, which was a nice treat as Cassatt is one of those artists whose work I’ve never seen in South Florida. The permanent collection also had some interesting works by other artists, so it was a worthwhile trip, though a very long drive.

And the museum has this great teacup and kettle sculpture that made for a nice photo-op

My Auntie Em and her friend, Mariel, created this neat Facebook page (Toys on Film) to document the daily misadventures of their designer toys. I was tickled by the idea and so have started posting some of my own toys to the collection.

Admittedly, I’m not in much of a festive mood this year, but the scent of my mom’s dulce de leche and my grandma’s atol have warmed me up considerably. For those of you wondering what I mean by atol, it’s a sort of Cuban corn pudding, not the corn drink of the same name that is found in around other parts of Latin America. The dulce de leche that my mom makes is also different from the caramel most people may be thinking of, this is a crumbly milk and yogurt based desert that more closely resembles a sweet, caramel-brown cottage cheese. It’s hard to describe but they both taste wonderful.

And here is Didymus getting into the holiday spirit with his little box of glowing Christmas cheer. Don’t mind the mess around him, things are bound to get a bit messy around here.

Had an unexpectedly artful weekend . Auntie Em hosted an impromptu ornament crafting event on Friday night with lots of felt, thread, needles (luckily, no pricking of my thumbs), and glue.  I had no idea what I was getting into when she asked me over, so I had no plan whatsoever for my ornament making, and no clue what materials I would be working with. It was all very experimental, but I managed to make three ornaments that look like something, even if they are not perfect.

The first ornament started out as a puffy, stuffed crown but it soon became evident that it was too small to be a proper crown. A flower it is, with little dewdrops. The bee was my one true success; it is exactly what I wanted it to be. The third one is a mystery object. I tried to make a teacup, but it’s more of an ice cream cup than anything else.

Was a fun little project and I would like to make a few more ornaments, though I haven’t really had a tree since Didymus’s disastrous first Christmas. Maybe one that looks like the chubby critters I drew yesterday during my afternoon of sketching with the b-chan.

I seriously need a better scanner, everything always looks shadowed.

Feel I have accomplished an awful lot today and it’s not even dinnertime yet! Well, not really accomplished anything major, just small steps. I even managed to put up my very tiny tree atop what is slowly becoming The Bookshelf o’ Christmas Cheer (!)… though it looks more like The Bookshelf of Seasonal Confusion at the moment. Needs more tinsel. Also need to find a good piece of cardboard to fashion a snowy wreath for our door.