Fried Egg Sandwich with Sriracha Aioli

I unabashedly consider myself something of an expert in the field of Fried Egg Sandwiches. The morning after my sister and I ran the 2007 Los Angeles Marathon, we hobbled over to BLD for their exemplary version with Neuske’s thick cut bacon and Gruyère on sourdough. Claire and I are also regulars at Huckleberry Café in Santa Monica. After a Saturday morning run out at the beach, we hit Huckleberry for a version that includes Niman Ranch bacon and arugula on country bread (and the blueberry corn cake is out of this world). It’s a little heavy handed with the arugula but delicious all the same. Check it out:

Not to be outdone by The Oaks Gourmet in Hollywood with their ooey gooey Breakfast Sandwich loaded with fried egg, fresh mozzarella, pancetta, basil and garlic oil on Tuscan sourdough.

But—I humbly submit—the best version is served up at home, thanks to my “secret” weapon: Sriracha aioli. Sriracha is a staple in southern California—a Thai-style chile and garlic sauce that finds its way into all manner of goodness. Yesterday, I shared the recipe for my fried egg sandwich over on Herman Miller’s LIFEWORK blog in an ongoing series called “Good Taste.” It’s a carefully built sandwich that balances nutty, spicy flavors with the warm comfort of a fried egg. I actually prefer a chewy, nutty multigrain bread to sourdough in the mix. (Rudi’s Organic 7 Grain with Flax avail at Whole Foods makes a surprisingly good one.) One thing I forgot to add in that recipe is to sprinkle a teeny bit of pimentòn over the egg for a subtle smokey note. In the meantime, here’s a peek at mixing my not-so-secret Sriracha sauce, a dollop of mayo and a squirt of Sriracha. Voilà! And is epic on a cheeseburger, too:

For The Foodinista’s Fried Egg Sandwich recipe, click HERE.

A Nourishing Breakfast

Yesterday morning I found myself with a few hours to kill on the west side while getting Mr Foodinsita’s car serviced, and so I walked over to my favorite breakfast spot in Santa Monica, Huckleberry Café. I ordered an ENORMOUS bowl of trifle (which they passive aggressively brought with two spoons) and settled in with a cup of coffee and The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diares as He Wrote Them 1970-1980. It’s a tough call on which is more delicious—the divine raspberry-soaked cake with a gooey mess of whipped cream and custard, or the viciousness with which Beaton describes a television appearance by his aging friend Marlene Dietrich. I wish I could share a taste of that trifle, but instead here’s a sampling of Beaton, unexpurgated:

Even for a hardened expert like myself it was impossible to find the chink in her armour. All the danger spots were disguised. Her dress, her figure, her limbs, all made to appear like those of the youngest. When one thinks of this old doll rattling on and coining in the money, and then when one thinks of Greta, lined, grey, unhappy, never doing anything to stave off boredom, one wonders that they are of the same stuff. I sat enraptured and not a bit critical as I had imagined. The old trooper never changes her tricks because she knows they work, and because she invented those tricks she must be given credit for being a virtuoso in the art of legerdemain.

“You know me,” Marlene is fond of saying. You don’t. Nobody does—because she’s a real phoney. She’s a liar, an egomaniac, a bore, but she has her points. She’s never late, she’s generous and she’s, as a performer, on a grand scale in a period of pygmies.—Cecil Beaton, 1973

Marlene Dietrich, photographed by Cecil Beaton, 1936