Unlikely

The toast got too dark. The egg poached for a minute too long. The light was not good for a photo, and the plate shone in all the wrong places.

But the liverwurst underneath the egg redeemed it all.

Such a strange pairing! My Beloved was making liverwurst sandwiches for his lunch while I was poaching an egg for mine and the idea just popped into my head.

It made a simply elegant lunch - with a tad more refinement, it could have been poached egg on a bed of paté. The hot egg softened and nearly melted the wurst, and the mingled flavors just worked. I can't describe how and why it worked - it just did.

Next time, well, yes, I'd just toast the toast rather than incinerate it, but I'd still slightly overcook the egg and I'd definitely spread a slice of liverwurst onto the bread before topping. Sometimes, the best lunch ideas are the most unlikely.

Bodacious Brown Lump

Here's another of those foods that people either love or despise - liverwurst.

While we were at the Kensington farmer's market, we purchased from The Fifth Quarter several items, including a six-inch long fat roll of liverwurst. We opened the vacuum seal this weekend and made sandwiches.

Like the paté, another offering from Scott Brennan, this too had more texture than the usual liverwurst one buys at the deli counter, and it convinced us that this is how liverwurst should be. It tasted mild, homey and authentic, with just enough texture to make it interesting but not enough to definitively reveal what it was made from - a happy balance, in my view. I love liverwurst but I don't need (or want) to know what's in there.

I'd love to see an artful picture of liverwurst, but I doubt that is possible. It's bodacious, but it's really just a brown lump.