Raul has been up a good part of the night reading the vintage copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, that Drew's mom has given them from her vast collection. "It's funny, you can almost hear her voice as you read," says Raul. "I have to dig out that enamelled frying pan so I can cook without affecting the colours of the food. Very important for the photographs."
"And I had no idea that I was supposed to wait until the butter started to foam before browning meat or cooking eggs," muses Drew. "That's when it apparently reaches its maximum heat. Julia does love her butter but then so do I."
"And she says to use lardon [pork belly] instead of bacon. If you want your dish to taste of bacon, use bacon. If you want it to be accented by pork, use lardon." The very idea of pork belly takes Raul back to his childhood in the Azores where the entire pig was used - the memories are bittersweet befitting post-Father's Day. "You use pork belly for the fat, from the days when you cooked everything in lard. Fat tastes good and some foods really benefit from it. But this whole pork belly craze is actually decades old. Julia was ahead of her time again." Raul has just bought bacon on sale at Food Basics, "It's a little bit fatty but you get what you pay for," but an expedition to T&T for pork belly is looming. "What do you feel like for breakfast?"
"I'm not awake enough to be hungry. A bagel with avocado?"
"We're out of avocado but I can put together a heart attack on a plate."
"Sounds delicious. And I can't wait until we have one with a la lardon."
Raul substitutes sauteed mushrooms for avocado, bacon for lardon, and rye bread for the bagels that have gone stale. The flavour is robust enough, yet subtle enough, to make Julia proud.
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