Before I worked here I worked at New York Magazine, and before New York Magazine I worked for myself at home. I can draw a lot of parallels from that brief period of self-employment to now. There was a lot of uncertainty, although the uncertainty then was of the personal kind (How am I going to make enough money? Am I on the right path?) and not the product of a global crisis. There was of course lots of beauty—the writing of it, the observation of it, the practice of it. But most important of all, there was breakfast.

On a typical weekday pre-coronavirus I might have had a coffee for breakfast, or, if I was lucky (and thanks to its Glossier HQ-adjacent location for easy access), a microwaved breakfast burrito from Trader Joe’s (never cereal or yogurt, sorry). Neither of these were particularly ideal—coffee is coffee and no amount of Cholula can mask the rubberized bite of microwaved eggs in a day-old tortilla. But the weekend breakfasts! Those were always something to look forward to. Bacon. Hash browns. Avocado toast. Dishes that rely on the currency of time, and on the weekends I was rich.

Other than fantasize about the after, when all of this has long passed, the only thing we can really do is look for the small positives under our current circumstances. For me that looks like upping my urban gardening game and having a gargantuan breakfast every damn day of the week. I’ve traded in my half hour commute for 15 minutes of cooking (or 15 minutes of waiting for husband to finish cooking) and 15 minutes of eating. I am reclaiming my time, as Maxine Waters would say, and let me tell you, that time is effing delicious.

The breakfast I eat the most is a bacon, avocado, and egg sandwich (which has been shortened to, with a dollop of eye-rolling in my household, The B.A.E.). It is a basic, objectively unhealthy concoction that I deserve. It’s fine without the bacon if you don’t eat meat, and also tasty with a slice of heirloom tomato if you so desire. Overall it is my comfort, my joy! And maybe it might be yours, too. Here’s the recipe below. And even if breakfast isn’t your thing, I say now is the perfect time to be more forgiving to yourself, to give in to something that felt impossible to do in the before. Apparently for me that’s saturated fats. Maybe for you it’s hogging the bathroom for a little more indulgent bath time, or binge-watching without self-judgment. Now, you gotta do you, because really that’s all there is to do.

The B.A.E.
Makes one sandwich

Ingredients:
- 1 hamburger bun (preferably a potato roll bun from Martin’s)
- 1 tablespoon of butter, melted
- 1 slice of bacon, cut into 2 pieces
- Canola or grapeseed oil
- 1 egg
- ¼ of a ripe avocado, thinly sliced
- Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes to taste

1. Set your oven to the broil setting. Brush the inside of the bun with the melted butter and toast in the oven until the bread turns golden brown, about 1 to 3 minutes.
2. Cook the bacon in a SMALL skillet over medium heat, flipping a few times until it is crispy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the bacon from the skillet and place on a paper towel-lined plate.
3. Clean out any excess bacon fat from the skillet and heat the skillet over medium heat again, along with enough oil to completely cover the skillet. Once the oil is nice and hot, crack an egg and drop it into the skillet. Tilt the skillet slightly away from you, scooping up the hot oil with a spoon as it pools. Pour that oil over the whites of the egg, avoiding the yolk. Keep doing this until the whites are completely cooked, and the yolk is cooked to your liking. (Alternatively, don’t avoid basting the yolk if you want your fried egg cooked over hard.)
4. Sprinkle the egg with a little salt and pepper and layer the egg, bacon, and avocado on the burger bun. Sprinkle some red pepper flakes over the avocado, if you like.
5. Eat!

—Ashley Weatherford

Photo via ITG