Breakfast at Boswell’s

About … hmmm …. oh lordy lord … has it been twenty-one years? Yes. Yes, I believe it has. How does that happen? How can sitting in traffic for an hour feel like an eternity, but pop! oh, guess what?! Two decades just evaporated. Thanks for playing.

Sorry. I’ll start over.

About twenty-one years ago, I was a card-carrying member of a dedicated, breakfast-loving group of co-workers. We met for breakfast once a month at a local greasy spoon called Boswell’s. Oh, did I say “spoon”? I was being nice. This place was a greasy bucket. I don’t think a single item on the menu, including coffee, came with fewer than 478 grams of fat.

The number of participants varied each month, but it wasn’t unusual to have at least ten of us show up. We met early in the morning. (At least half of the year, it was still dark.) No one bothered with menus as each of us, in turn, ordered his or her “usual”. We ordered as promptly as possible because it was at least a forty-five minute wait for the food to arrive and we still had to go to work. I don’t know why we never once thought about doing it on a weekend.

At least eighty percent of the group’s “usual” was what Boswell’s called the “special.” (Ever wonder why the most commonly ordered item on the menu in restaurants like this is always called the “special”?) From time to time, someone would perhaps order a waffle. But that was rare. (In fact, I remember one time, about two tables over, a poor guy ordered oatmeal. He was immediately escorted from the restaurant and banned for life.) No, with rare exceptions, you got the special.

I’m sure you’ve already pictured it in your head. Two eggs (“any way you like ’em!”), two pieces of bacon, four sausage links, four sausage patties, six slices of toast, a full (or half) order of hashbrowns (“full” is the correct denomination), a stack of hotcakes, slathered in trans fats and maple-like syrup, two more pieces of bacon, corned beef hash, biscuits and gravy, ham, grits, two bagels with lite cream cheese, steak, and a donut. All that for a buck ninety-nine.

It took nanoseconds for everyone to dive into their fourteen-thousand calories as soon as it hit the table. After all, it had been a long, long wait. Not to mention the only thing most of us had had to eat that day was three or four sugar packets while waiting.

The food was all exquisitely fine but, I tell you, nothing topped the hashbrowns. (Unless, of course, you topped your hashbrowns with grilled onions, green peppers, or jalapenos.) They were unlike any other hashbrowns I’ve ever had. The potatoes were shredded and essentially cooked into a giant, thick potato pancake: crispy on the outside and full of steamy goodness on the inside. I preferred mine with a single coat of Tabasco sauce and two cups of salt. Mmmm… mmm… those were certainly the days.

Unfortunately the tradition ultimately ended as one by one we dropped dead from clogged arteries. That must have been the fate of all their customers because they long ago closed up shop for good. We eventually looked for replacement greasy buckets, but alas! they just weren’t the same. I mean, hardly any of us died at the other places.