"It's the most important meal of the day."

Not as important as coffee, maybe, but so important that many consider it bad form if an early meeting at the office doesn't include some sort of pastry.

I'm no enemy of pastry, to be sure, but I think it has its place - which is at or after three in the afternoon. There's nothing worse than going in for a long, early meeting, only to be supplied with mealy donuts and hard-as-a-rock muffins. You can hear tummies start to grumble around 10:30, and the food DTs kicking in by 11. That's just who I want making decisions for my business - a bunch of sugar-crashing caffeine junkies who can barely hold a pencil.

My challenge for you this month is to ritualize your breakfast, at least on weekdays. Figure out what breakfast can get you to lunch without snacking or starving, then make a point to carve out 15 minutes to enjoy it each day.

If you work 9-to-5 and have weekends off, I would suggest that weekdays are not the time to experiment with new breakfast foods. Personally, I need a ritual breakfast that is easy to keep on hand, fast to prepare and hard to mess up before coffee. And unless it's ok for me to turn into a condescending know-it-all at 10 a.m. (more than normal, that is), my breakfast also needs to give me a hefty shot of fat and protein.*

After a good deal of experimentation, I discovered that eggs are my secret to a satisfied morning for me. A leftover piece of quiche is a fantastic breakfast, as is Clotilde's Oeuf Cocotte, which bakes in the oven for about as long as it takes me to dry my hair and put on makeup. But I'm a midwestern girl, and I usually fall back on an uber-traditional, six-minutes-to-the-table classic: two eggs over-easy on whole-wheat toast.
The method:
1. Preheat nonstick fry pan over medium-low heat.
2. Get two eggs from fridge and two slices whole-wheat bread from loaf in freezer.
3. Put bread in toaster.
4. Make yourself a glass of water.
4. Drizzle a teaspoon of olive oil into the fry pan. Let heat 30 seconds or so.
5. Spread the oil out in the fry pan with a spatula. Break eggs into the pan, taking care not to injure the yolks.** Let fry for about 90 seconds, or until the outer white is cooked through and the inner white has just begun to set.
6. Gently flip the eggs. Turn off the burner. Let the eggs finish in the hot pan for about one minute. Meanwhile, get a plate and put your toast on the plate - it should have popped by now.
7. Slide eggs out of the pan onto or beside your toast. Proceed to table with glass of water and enjoy. You're out the door in 15 minutes tops.

An Egga-Mooby-Muffin is a simply variation on this theme - one over-easy egg and a slice of cheese on a whole-wheat English muffin. Put the cheese on the egg after you've flipped it, then make sure you have a napkin when you chow down.

*I challenge you to find a breakfast cereal that is truly satisfying. Most cereals and all fruit juices give you a shot of pure sugar and starch that go up in smoke within an hour or two, just like Chinese take-out.

**If you do injure the yolks, as I do once a week, you can always scrap the whole mess into the garbage can right here and start over. You're only out an egg or two and 30 seconds. If you screw up the eggs a second time, you're having scrambles today.