I was raised on diner breakfasts back in Tennessee, where you sat at the counter over a steaming cup of coffee and watched your breakfast prepared. The cook would slice your bacon off the slab, sausage came from the Frosty Morn plant down the road and the eggs came from a nearby hen house. Back then, you got a bowl of grits with breakfast whether or not you asked for it, along with a big heap of potatoes--home fries, the signature of every breakfast cook. Potatoes were there to fill you up and sustain you till lunch, they soaked up the runny egg yoke and became an exquisite mix that you chased around the plate with the last bite of toast. For me, potatoes make the breakfast.
William Least-Heat Moon in his book Blue Highways rated diners by the number of calendars on the wall. I rate diners by their potatoes. I think it’s the most accurate measure of a diner breakfast, And by potatoes, I don’t mean those measly grated hash browns that come in a package and are merely fried in oil on the grill. I mean potatoes that started out being washed, peeled, sliced and boiled. Potatoes on a plate of fried eggs, toast and sausage are the cook’s artistic focus and should reflect an old tattered recipe perfected over the years. There is little to no artist’s touch in cooking eggs, nor to frying bacon and sausage. Home fries are the creative part of cooking breakfast.
It’s a sad fact that around Fern Park there are damned little home fries and fewer diners. I used to drop by the Athena for breakfast. It’s in the old Circuit City plaza on 436 between a post office substation and West Marine. The waitresses will pour you coffee without asking and there is counter seating if you want. Their home fries are cooked soft, almost mashed; there is garlic and paprika and they go down real good. It’s a great place to sit quietly with a novel and sip coffee. But the Athena has stopped serving breakfast during the weekdays and that sadly reduces weekday diner breakfasts in the area by about 50 percent.
The Dome Grill on Central Avenue in downtown St Petersburg cooks the very best home fries. When I kept my boat in St Pete, the Dome was my early morning choice. Their potatoes would sustain you for a whole day on the water. They were sliced thick, fried in olive oil on the grill, with chopped onions, garlic salt, black pepper and lots of fresh Italian parsley, all folded together on their big grills until the mountain of potatoes steamed and and the edges browned. The cook would slap a huge mound on your plate beside two or three fried eggs and some link sausages, and I’m telling you, it was heavenly. The cook’s name was Frank and I had bragged on his potatoes enough that he would always ask me how they were. I would leave the Dome chewing a toothpick, full as a tick, ready for a day of sailing.
Sadly, the art of making home fries has often been replaced by hash browns--those little grated bits that are neither brown nor resemble hash--no seasoning, just too much salt, and too little flavor. Denny’s and Waffle House are the main culprits. Denny’s does a very good breakfast steak, and the Waffle House pecan waffles are a delight, but the hash browns from both are disappointing. Besides, hash is chopped cooked corned beef, with diced potatoes and onions, fried on a grill--another great breakfast meat. Hash brown potatoes are a poor imitation of honest potatoes and should be relegated to the snack food isle at the grocery store.
There are certain things that should never be served with breakfast home fries, including slices of fruit, breakfast burritos and wifi hot spots. Laptops just don’t go with home fries; coffee and the newspaper go with eggs and home fries. If you want a foo foo breakfast with fruit and flavored toppings on your food and in your coffee, visit Panera further up 436 at Maitland Avenue. There you can fiddle with your laptop and Google away the hours. Leave the Internet out of my diners, please!
The second best potatoes are served at the Wooden Spoon diner in Marathon Key. The Spoon seats maybe 40 customers, serves breakfast mostly to fishermen heading out early, lunch to locals and closes mid-afternoon so the staff has time for a siesta and the daily appointment at the east end of Seven Mile Bridge to watch the sunset. Wooden spoons decorate the walls and (I’m sure) haven’t been moved in at least the 30 years we’ve been visiting the Keys. It’s the oldest diner on the island and has been there for 60 years or so. They’ve been making home fries the same way for about that long. The potatoes are sliced thick, browned in some butter on the grill, with a touch of garlic and paprika and black pepper. They come out more crunchy, not soft like the Dome’s, and mighty good. For a few dollars the Spoon will make you up a sack lunch of a sandwich and a snack to take out on the boat, but the home fries will last you all day.
