What makes a good restaurant breakfast?

Anybody can fry up some ham or bacon or sausages.

That's not what makes a good breakfast.

And believe it or not, it ain't the eggs either.

Mind you, there is a level of skill that I don't have that's essential to doing eggs over-easy.

Me personally, I can do eggs sunny side up. Once I try for over easy... well, that's generally where I decide to go for an omelette instead.

Flipping those eggs over on the grill is an art.

But any greasy spoon everywhere has found a minimum wage cook who can flip those eggs without breaking them. Which is why we like to have breakfast out.

What really makes or breaks a breakfast is the quality of the potatoes.

Those deep-fried potato cubes aren't fucking breakfast potatoes, OK? That's just crap!

We were shocked to be served those with our breakfast at the Green Door the other day.

Now to be fair, the server actually spilled flat out that they're not doing breakfast.

So why are you open for breakfast hours? They used to do breakfast, and they used to have real fried-on-the-stove-top potatoes on offer as part of it, as befits their stellar rep.

But now they don't have breakfast but they're open at breakfasty hours, and they've got a couple of breakfasty things on the menu, but they come with DEEP FRIED FROZEN POTATO CUBES!

No way!

The Top Notch still offers up real potatoes, but the last few times we've breakfasted there, they've been undercooked. That's almost worse than those faux fries masquerading as fried potatoes.

So today we ventured all the way up to Lion's Head for breakfast. Real fried potatoes! Properly cooked!

Trust me, it's worth the drive to the MaryDale restaurant. And now that the tourists are gone home, it's not even crowded.

The relentless pursuit of happiness

What the fuck is "happiness" anyway?

I've got two divorces and a bankruptcy under my belt. Not a Trump or Reichmann bankruptcy, where you diddle the creditors while paying teams of $1,000/hour lawyers to ensure that you're going to keep your mansions and your yachts etc.

I'm talking about the kind of bankruptcy where you do in fact lose everything.

Regular folks have a different bankruptcy experience than the Trump and Reichmann crowd.

They get to keep everything while their buddies in the big banks take a loss on the balance sheet, and "business as usual" sails merrily along on its pre-ordained course.

That wasn't my bankruptcy.

And I've got the credit rating to prove it.

The Farm Manager is bitter that a bunch of her colleagues at her day job are taking time off to go on those all-inclusive holidays to Cuba or the Dominican Republic.

I figure why not just drink yourself silly in the comfort of your home?

If nothing else you'll save yourself all those hassles at the airport.

I can fire up the Ninja 500 or the Mustang 50 and be at the Wiarton liquor store in ten minutes.

Mind you, that only happens when you probably shouldn't be driving anyway.

Otherwise it's closer to fifteen minutes.

Shit happens.

Wiarton is changing. There's some decent restaurant action going on.

The Green Door would do a brisk business even if it was in downtown Toronto. Tim's a superb chef and he and Sarah make a great team. They're big city restauranteurs in a small town, and I've never had a bad experience at their place.

The guy who transformed Coalshed Willie's into Dockside Willie's deserves some accolades too. Don't let that Ford pick-up with the six inch lift fool you; this guy knows his culinary shit.

When you drive past the marina you notice there's a couple of fifty-foot-plus Sea-Rays berthed there. A nice used Sea-Ray 52 Sundancer is going to set you back half a million bucks.

You can still buy a decent abode in Wiarton for under 150.

When you go past the marina there's a few houses on the shore of Colpoy Bay before you get to the water treatment plant. One of those was on offer this year for half a million. It must have sold, because last weekend we drove up that road and there was a brand new Aston Martin parked outside that place that had been for sale.

In the rain.

When there's a perfectly good garage attached to the house...

Makes me wonder, what's in the garage?

Seems to me that the Aston Martin and fifty foot Sea Ray crowd are finding happiness right here in Wiarton.