Toast for Breakfast

I need something quick for breakfast. A chore is calling me away from my computer, out into the day, and it strikes me that I haven't had anything to eat. Never mind that I'm meeting a friend for lunch in a little over an hour.

Yogurt? Not in the mood. Had eggs yesterday, and they'd take too long. Out of granola (make a note to pick up supplies for the next batch).

Toast will do, since there's nearly always a loaf of Dave's sourdough sitting on the counter cut-side down, its flavor deepening and its crust thickening, requiring some work to slice but giving it a lovely crunch when toasted.

The toasting is tricky, too, since long slices from the center of the loaf need to be halved and stood upright to fit into our old toaster, but today's is just the right length to slip in whole. It requires two punches of the toaster's knob to get the right ratio of browning, since we've neglected to adjust the timer to our requirements, though a full two cycles starts to burn the edges so I have to remember to pop it up just before the second cycle is complete.

Like I said, tricky.

Get out a plate, pull the butter from the cupboard and a knife from the drawer, slather the warm slice with enough butter to cover it, trying to avoid the inevitable airholes that will drip butter on my keyboard, the counter, the dogs who are lying at my feet eagerly hoping for just such an event. Being out of Ayers Creek jam (another note to pick some up soon) I rummage for honey in the pantry and drizzle the amber liquid, then sit down with the last half mug of coffee from the pot.

Crunching ensues, and I even remember to save a couple of bits of crust for the dogs, still waiting hopefully below me.

The Buzzin' of the Bees in the Linden Trees

There's a heavy, somewhat astringent perfume that wafts through Portland's neighborhoods in early summer. Emanating from the cascading yellow-white blossoms of linden trees planted along the city's sidewalks, the aroma is apparently akin to crack for honeybees.

Walking beneath one when it's in bloom is to experience what it must be like to live inside a beehive, with a constant, rhythmic thrumming of wings as the bees go from blossom to blossom collecting the copious amounts of nectar the flowers produce. One tree can have the equivalent of a couple of acres of flowers, enough for a backyard hive to produce a particular type of honey known as basswood.

Highly prized, basswood honey is light-colored but with a distinctly strong flavor that is, not surprisingly, reminiscent of those strongly scented linden flowers. It's moderately sweet, has a very slight bitterness and a taste that lingers on the tongue.

How do I know all this? Well, a neighbor recently harvested about 50 pounds of honey from his hives and, as he'd hoped, some of it was the basswood honey from a nearby linden. It only took a moderate amount of begging, but the other day we were presented with a small jar of golden treasure. This morning we opened the jar, drizzled the honey on the sourdough biscuits Dave made and found out what all the fuss was about.

This is just to say that if you have a wide parking strip of, oh, six to eight feet wide with no overhead wires, the city of Portland okays the linden as a street tree. And after tasting this honey, I'd highly recommend planting one of these babies and getting into beekeeping.