Blog Crush

I can't recall how I stumbled upon "A Cup of Jo," my latest blog crush, but I'm enjoying it very much. Jo is a young, thirty-something woman who lives in NYC with a handsome huz and a sweet baby boy. Now, if you could draw a polar opposite to me in every way except gender, it would probably be Jo.

Jo is young, slender, lively, fashion conscious, interested in "The Bachelor" series on TV, has a son, lives happily in a huge city, and hardly cooks at all. Still, I get a kick out of reading about peeptoe wedges and dark chocolate ice cream on her blog even though I wouldn't be found dead in the former and I found the latter to be 'way too intense. Jo has a way of making killing your feet and your waistline sound like fun.

Jo is on a mission to learn how to cook a few "classics" like mac and cheese and scrambled eggs. Isn't that cute? She posted recently about making a breakfast sandwich, one of my favorite foods, so I decided to try her way and see if I liked it.

Now, recognize that she started with a slice of American cheese, that ghastly bright orange kind that comes individually wrapped in plastic. Like peeptoe wedges, that's something that is simply never going to happen in my house. But, otherwise, it seemed like a nice, simple way to turn an egg and a piece of cheese into breakfast. So, I made one myself, subbing in a slice of Swiss and some nutty wheatberry toast. I also added a slice of Canadian bacon for flavor; I briefly sauteéd it in the pan to warm it, then removed it to the waiting toast before pouring in the egg, placing the cheese on top, cooking briefly, and folding it into an eggy envelope.

The result was divinely oozy and unctuous, tender egg and warm cheese counterpointed by the light smoke of the bacon and the crunch of the toast. Even while I was wolfing it down, I was thinking of tweaks to this basic recipe, herbs to add and different cheeses, mentally making lots of different breakfasts.

So, Jo and I live on opposite coasts, have different lives, and don't share much in the way of preferences, but I find her to be a delight. Go see if you agree.