So, I’m pregnant. Right? And I’m hungry - often. Actually, I think about food all the time. Not necessarily because I’m hungry, but because I’m craving food. It’s like, I get these crazy cravings - but for nothing specific. I’ve never dealt with severe cravings with any of my pregnancies, but this time? I dream about food. BUT - it’s like my pregnant self is on the quest for some sort of dream food and all my body wants to do is try new things at the grocery store, searching for the foods that will satisfy my cravings.

The worst is breakfast. I wake up every morning either starving, or just wanting FOOD FOOD FOOD. (Which, I’m learning, is not the same thing.) But - I can not find the breakfast food my pregnant body likes. I’ve made egg sandwiches and oatmeal. I’ve bought poptarts and yogurt. I even bought donuts and….eh…they didn’t do it either. So, I find myself going grocery shopping and just wandering down the aisles (especially the breakfast aisles) looking for cereals or other items that spark my craving interest.

It’s really insane. And also? Bugging the shit out of me. It’s like my mind has taken a turn and I’m in some sort of quest mode…but there’s nothing even remotely noble about it. I mean - I’m obsessing about FOOD. It’s all I think about…ALL THE TIME.

So - you know where this is going, right? Make me drool. Tell me what you eat for breakfast. If it’s something I can simply buy off the shelves and then go home and eat, you get bonus points. If I can eat it in the store while I shop? Even better.

NikkiZ and I went to an early breakfast together at my new favorite restaurant - Another Broken Egg. I have become totally hooked on this place and am on my way to knowing everyone there by name. NikkiZ loves it as well and will eat four times as much food there as she will another other place in town. As a matter of fact, she took a biscuit with her and carried it with her through our entire grocery excursion at Target. She wouldn’t eat it, but if I even hinted at throwing it away, she would almost cry, the thought would devastate her so. She finally gave up when we got home because the dogs wouldn’t leave her alone as she carried it around. She parted ways with the biscuit, but only after I promised her ninety million times that we’ll go there again someday.

Another Broken Egg: Making Toddlers Crazy Every Morning.

I went to Target today to get some things for LilZ’s fundraisers at school. I decided to grab a sandwich for lunch at their deli area of the produce section. They always put really good sandwiches out there, and I have a few favorites. I thought I grabbed a ham and provolone sandwich, but realized when I read the label at the office, that it was pastrami and swiss. I was a little irritated because I have never had pastrami and assumed, since I had never had it, that it must suck. (Faulty logic, I know.)

But you know what? PASTRAMI IS THE MOST AWESOME SLICED MEAT EVER.

Amen.

I am so in love with pastrami now that I want to marry it and kiss it and make pastrami babies with it. Why have I not had pastrami before? Where would I have had it? Where should I go to get more? And can I eat it for breakfast? What else is it good with? Or do I have to even eat it with anything besides a fork?

Another positive sign for this pregnancy (Man - I’m such an optimist this time. It’s so unlike me.) is that I’ve had weird food cravings and sudden off-kilter food dislikes. I usually love marshmallow cereal goodness in whatever form it comes in. But this morning? I ate a bowl and the aftertaste of it made me want to hurl for an hour. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to even smell the stuff again, much less eat it. Whereas, I can not stop thinking about green olives. Like, right now, 6:30am, I’m thinking about grabbing a handful of green olives to wash down that marshmallow taste. THAT IS DISGUSTING.

And Pimento cheese. I have eaten nothing but Pimento cheese sandwiches for the last week. I can not eat enough of the stuff. I even brought a container to work earlier this week and ate the stuff with crackers! Just dipping it like some sort of appetizer. GROSS.

I’ve suddenly decided I don’t really like veggie burgers. A standard staple in my diet for the last 10 years. And now? I think they look, smell, and taste really nasty. I made one for NikkiZ the other day and just about gagged cutting it up for her. I’ve eaten HUNDREDS of them in my life, and suddenly I’m repulsed by them? That has GOT to be a good sign, right? Surely this baby is going to hang in there if he’s already screwing with my palette. That’s how I’m looking at it anyway.

Now, for my next culinary adventure: Crackers dipped in pimento cheese with a green olive on the top for good measure.

I’m drooling now.

This post is in response to the daily prompt I put here.

One of my favorite southern chains, Guthrie’s, serves some of the yummiest chicken tenders. It’s what they’re famous for. So, this week when I noticed they had put up signs saying they’re now serving breakfast in the mornings, I knew I had to check it out.

Unfortunately, when we were ready for breakfast, they weren’t open yet. And since it’s a new thing, they still didn’t have a sign on the door telling when they open. Just the taunting sign saying, “Now serving breakfast!” We had the two most impatient hungry types in the world (pregnant and toddler) in the car so we opted for our backup: another Southern/Huntsville chain that specializes in BBQ but makes a mean breakfast menu too.

We went and had grits and biscuits and gravy and sausage and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I love southern cooking. Of course, they had white gravy and I prefer sausage gravy, but it was still damn good. There is one thing that we don’t have a shortage of around here: Ways to clog your arteries before noon.

What about you? Do you have your favorite breakfast foods? Have you ever tasted the angioplasty-required southern style breakfast? Did you then want to marry it? And have little southern-breakfast babies with it? No? Just me then? Okay.