A Disappointment

I had a mild hangover this morning. A dinner of Ouae (essentially, Korean sushi) was rinsed down by more than a couple bottles of Baeksaeju (a cheap and not-particularly-cheerful rice wine) and I had a headache of around a 6.3/10 this morning as a result. I overslept and missed breakfast and subsequently found myself on the bus, swaying, and fantasising about what I'd eat if I was in the Real World.

When I find myself doing this of a morning, two words begin to bounce randomly around my brain, interrupting my every thought.

Sausages...bacon.....sausages...bacon....

I can get bacon here. I could even get it last year. It's not the same though. It's not even nearly the same. I can also get sausages here, but they are expensive, bland and simply not thick enough. I like a bit of girth on my sausage. That's right, you heard it here first -

Korea simply does not have enough girth on it's sausage.

I found myself thinking about the fry-ups I'd make back home. I am something of a cooked-breakfast King. Ask my boy, Teh. I cook up a mean one.

You have to think in advance before you start on a fry-up, because everything becomes just the right amount of greasy at different times. Get everything that you require on the table in front of you. Turn the radio on.

You should bang your hash browns in the oven first, as they take the longest. From the moment the oven door shuts, you have 18-20 minutes to make it right.

You should have more bread than you know what to do with. This is important. A minimum of 3 slices should be prepared (2 to be toasted, 1 to be fried) but more can be added at will. Stack your bread by the toaster. Timing here is crucial.

Bang a couple* of sausages in a frying pan and get them going nice and slowly. Don't be a prick and prick them. Let those bangers be. Personally, I'll throw my quartered (button) or whole (baby) mushrooms into the pan with the sausages and pepper them like a sex-attacker. Mushrooms soak up moisture (i.e. fat) and if your mushrooms taste of bacon and sausage then this is no bad thing.

Give the bangers 5 minutes before you flip your hash browns and get started on your bacon. If it's in a red packet, indicating it to be smoked, then throw it out of the window and kill yourself. If it's in a nice blue packet, tear it open with a fork and bang a couple** of rashers in a different pan. This pan should be hotter than the sausage pan to get the rashers cooked nice and quickly. We want the fat out of these bad boys. What else would we cook our eggs in?

Put the kettle on. Choose your TV channel. Acquire both brown and red sauce. Prepare your cutlery. Remove the butter from the fridge and stick a knife in it. And if you insist on having beans with it, then drain that juice off. It makes my bread go soggy. No no no no NO!

We're getting to the business end of proceedings. Your kitchen should be smoky and smelling of grease. If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong, and you should add more meat. When the bacon is cooked, pick the rashers out of the pan and lay them on top of the mushrooms in the sausages' pan. To the sensually-brown bacon fat, add a little knob of butter and get the heat back down. In this, you shall cook your eggs. Crack 'em and leave 'em. Treat them like you would your kids. They have to make their own mistakes. Let the whites go where they will. Trust them to do right. But don't crack the yolk. You might as well throw everything else away if you do that.

Bang the toast down.

Grab the largest plate you can find and start stacking food onto it. Sausages first, bacon to the side of them, mushrooms scattered around them like Durex wrappers at an orgy. When the egg yolks only slightly wobble, slide them carefully onto your plate and slap your bread into the pan to fry in all that fat. The toast will jump up into your hand for the buttering. Do it instantly. Ensure it melts into the bread. Cut into triangles. Stick rectangles up your arse.

Add the hash browns at the end and carry it carefully to the battlefield.

Add sauce.

Consume.

Oh, baby...

It was with these thoughts that I completed my teaching day and meandered down to the lunch-room for my daily dose of heartbreak.

There was a fucking fish-head in my soup.

Love, Smithy x

* For 'couple' read 3
** For 'couple' read 4