There’s No Place Like Home

There are many fun places to go out to breakfast in Avalon but in my opinion, the best breakfast around is the one we cook at the house. There’s nothing like cutting up fresh local Jersey melon, peaches, and plums, adding a some fresh blueberries and raspberries to serve with French Toast made with cinnamon bread from Isabel’s, our favorite bakery/coffee shop.

Add some Taylor pork roll or my buddy Barbecue Bob’s homemade maple bacon, my wife’s incredible home fries and a New Jersey fresh sea breeze coming through the window and you have the perfect start to a day on the beach playing in the surf until lunchtime arrives.

Dining Out For Breakfast in Avalon

Over the years I’ve been to most of the breakfast restaurants down here in Avalon, but there are a few I go back to every year. While most of them have good eggs and pancakes, young locals working as waiters and waitresses, ok service and above fair market value prices, there are a few that go out of their way to make you feel particularly invited.

Our favorite breakfast spot of all is the Fishin’ Pier Grill at the start of the Avalon boardwalk next to the Beach Patrol shack (32nd & Boardwalk). Every year we enjoy at least one breakfast at the grill and every year Sue, owner and greeter, remembers who we are and chats it up with my daughters. With the thousands of visitors that must visit every year, it’s nice when the owners remember who you are.

The interior of the Fishin’ Pier Grill is one room plus a counter for 6 or 7 patrons. The tables are packed in but it doesn’t matter if your neighbors are close, the atmosphere has a “throwback in time beach feel” making breakfast or lunch taste all the better.

The food, prepared by Sue’s husband Rick, is delicious and the portions plentiful. You know what you are getting because the kitchen is open behind the counter and you can watch Rick flip pancakes and prepare his specialty gigantic omelets. The staff is young (Sue and Rick’s kids help out each year), professional, and very helpful.

Get there early, especially on weekends because by 9:00 am there is a crowd but waiting outside on the boardwalk watching morning strollers walk by is no big deal. There are lots of great breakfast places in Avalon but the Fishin’ Pier Grill is the one we always come back to.

Sitting here on the beach in Avalon, NJ, one of the most beautiful places to vacation reading Mark Schatzker’s new book Steak - One Man’s Search For the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef, one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read on the subject of beef.

No, it’s not a typical read for the beach. I enjoy a fast paced detective novel that I can scan through in a couple of days. This is a combination travelogue, history, biological culinary guide into the world of meat, where it comes from, what’s in it and why we should look for the real thing.

I’ll be writing more about Mark’s book when I finish but for now, I highly encourage you to read my interview with Mark if you are a foodie or someone who loves a good steak and wants to learn the truth about today’s beef industry and then go out and buy Steak. So far I have learned about beef from Texas, France, Scotland, Italy and am now learning about the famous Kobe beef in Japan.

Terroir - Eating Geographically

What I wanted to talk about in this blog is the French term “terroir” Mark describes in the Italy chapter. He writes,

“Describing what terroir means is not easy. An advertisement for a wine I once found in a magazine does a good job: The location, soil and climate of a given vineyard site directly affect the flavor and characteristics of the wine produced from that vineyard.”

He then goes on to compare this concept to food. He says,

“If you spend enough time eating in Italy, it begins to feel less like a country than like a collection of Italian-speaking tribes who happen to live on the same peninsula and eat similar food, though they themselves believe their foods are distinctly different. They cling to local food not to reduce carbon emissions or in the name of maximum freshness, but out of pride: Italians are the world’s proudest regionalists. Culinarily speaking, they cling to their dialects.”

And in the Japan chapter I’m currently reading, Mark writes about “brands” of beef when describing the difference between Iwate beef and Kobe beef. He says,

“Kobe beef comes from Kobe. Iwate beef comes from Iwate. As the Japanese see it, every part of their country has its own distinctive climate, geology, water, traditions, and so forth. Each region, therefore, produces its own equally distinctive foods, and they all compete with one another to produce the very best. Branding, you might say, is the Japanese version of terroir.”

New Jersey Terroir

As I’m reading this, I’m thinking about what I’ve been eating down here at the Jersey shore. I wait all year to enjoy the New Jersey beef steak tomatoes that are grown close by and purchased at a Clinton Conover Farm Stand on Route 9. It’s the same with the local sweet corn. It’s the best corn all summer - “in my opinion.”

Sure there is some local Jersey pride happening here but I just asked my friend from Utah about our tomatoes and she says they are the best she’s ever tasted. The peaches here are also outstanding. They seem sweeter than the local peaches we get from our farmer’s co-op out of Lancaster which are really good but not quite as sweet.

So I understand this term “terroir” from a Jersey state of mind and will start paying attention to it in the future when buying local harvests back in Philadelphia. I don’t think the United States will ever become as territorial as Mark describes Italy and Japan but I’m hoping I can get more involved with the local farmers’ markets and the wonderful source of goods produced by the Amish in the Lancaster area.

I have  enjoyed a small sampling of dairy and meat products offered to me by my friend Bruce Gill who makes a weekly journey to pick up supplies for the Harriton House in Bryn Mawr. I know there are local suppliers of chicken and pork but have not made the effort to seek them out. So I thank Mark for introducing me to this term “terroir” and encourage you to find your own versions in your own backyards.

I like my cup of coffee in the morning. And now that the temperature been hovering around 100 degrees F, I like my coffee iced. Most mornings I’ll brew a cup of half-caf with my Keurig Single Serve Coffeemaker, throw it in the refrigerator, let it chill for 15 minutes, pour it over ice, add a little milk and enjoy. Simple & cost effective.

However, there are mornings I take the kids to day camp and decide to stop for coffee at one of our local chain coffee houses. You know who I’m talking about.

It’s been hot, even at 8:30am in the morning so I like to order ice coffee but I don’t understand why the ice coffee is more expensive then the hot coffee. Is it the cost of ice? Maybe the extra effort it takes to pour it over ice. Or maybe it’s that the cup is a little bigger. I don’t know.

What I do know is if I buy a cup of hot coffee and bring it home and stick it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to cool off and then fill a glass with ice, I can make four glasses of iced coffee with their 1 cup of hot coffee!

So again I ask, “Why are they charging me more for iced coffee?”