No, I’m neither turning into Nigel Slater, or writing a review of his book.

This is the first post in what is a bit of a new direction for this site, my very own ‘food diaries’. It’s not set in stone, I’m not going to be here at the end of each evening meticulously cataloging what I have eaten throughout the day. It’s much more loose than that, it’s just my way to inject a bit more of me into this site rather than just offering instructions and recipe ideas.

Without further ado then, let’s get started with…

Saturday 2nd August 2008.

One of the more unique things about living in Brighton is ‘Pride’. Not being proud about the city that you live in, but the UK’s biggest gay event. I’m heterosexual, but that doesn’t stop me from going along to see the Pride parade and then heading up to Preston Park for the rest of the event.

From the moment that I woke up on Saturday morning it was obvious that it wasn’t going to be a glorious sunny day for this years event. I had a few things to do in the morning, and so was up and out early, wandering around the city in the cold grey drizzle. After a couple of hours of getting damp and chilly it was time to head back home for breakfast.

The biggest problem with breakfast was always going to be the fact that both the fridge and cupboards were pretty devoid of interesting content. Without going on a big loop out of the way, there wasn’t much chance of passing by any interesting shops, so I settled on popping into whatever local shops I might pass, and hunting down any ingredients that I could find to construct the kind of warming hearty breakfast that you need before you face a long chilly day spent outdoors.

What I actually ended up with was a completely random collection of items, some of which made their way into breakfast and some that didn’t. Those that did came together to form something probably horrifically unhealthy, but tasty and warming and just right before heading back out into the damp air to spend a day being amazed by semi clad people bouncing around a park on spring propelled fawns legs.

It’s painfully simple, toasted muffins filled with bacon, eggs and tomatoes. You will notice that there are no quantities in this recipe, as you just need to put in as much of each item as you like.

Bacon and Egg Muffin

1. Cook the bacon however you prefer to do it, I’d recommend either grilling it or baking it in a hot oven, as frying will leave it a bit greasy and you will end up with a soggy muffin.

2. While the bacon is cooking, slice the tomatoes reasonably thinly, and heat up a little oil in a frying pan to fry the eggs.

3. Split and toast the muffins until they turn golden brown, and spread them with salted butter

4. Fry one egg per muffin, until the white has set well but the yolk is still liquid

5. Remove the bacon from the grill/oven and drain on a piece of kitchen paper

6. Layer the bacon, tomatoes and egg onto the bottom half of each toasted muffin

7. Season with just a touch of sea salt, and some freshly ground black pepper, and pop the top on the muffin

We ate lunch out, in the nearest pub to the park that wasn’t completely swamped and looked like it might be able to deliver some food within any kind of semi-reasonable amount of time. From a pretty traditional pubby menu, I chose a ‘home made’ burger with chunky chips and a mixed leaf salad, and whilst nothing to write home about it, it wasn’t too bad at all.

In an attempt to appear modern and funky, the burger was served in ciabatta rather than just a bun, and the salad was decidedly Mediterranean. The chunky chips were great, the salad was nicely dressed, and the caramelised onion relish and slightly spicy salsa that came above and below the burger were all tasty, I didn’t eat the ciabatta. It’s just a shame that the burger itself didn’t live up to the rest of the plate, not just under seasoned but positively bland, it tasted more of onion than anything else, and still trying to work out why why when I could clearly see that it was made of beef.

We got home in the early evening and I really didn’t feel like a meal of any kind. Instead, I spent most of my evening grazing on bits of cheese, cold meat and pickles, with a bit of crusty bread. Why bother to cook when you have things like brie, stilton, some goats cheese and a nice crunchy pickled onion?