Simple as a Fried Egg Sandwich

From 1991 - 1993, I owned a snack bar in an ice rink. It had a grill, a fryer, and a sandwich bar and various other things. The menu was simple and fast so when I took over I added some things to the menu, classic things like patty melt, tuna melt, and a fried egg sandwich. The fried egg sandwich consisted of nothing more than a fried egg on lightly toasted and buttered bread. It was the cheapest thing on the menu and I was amazed at how many kids bought it. There were some boys who would buy it and immediately come back and order another. Or one boy would buy it and two of his friends would buy one right away after they tasted his. It happened all the time with the fried egg sandwich.

I used to laugh and think to myself, 'didn't their mom or grandma ever make them a fried egg sandwich?' I remember it always on the run - late for school or something but running out the door and I'd get one handed to me in a paper towel. It was a fried egg on one piece of bread folded in half and wrapped in a paper towel. "Here, let's go we're late! Go! Go! Go!" I never thought anything of it. I made quite a few for my son, too, but as he got older he ran to the car with a bowl of cereal(I wonder where he got that from).

A few years ago our family went to Trinidad on vacation. We went to the Asa Wright Nature Centre, one of the most beautiful places on earth. There was a house/museum with a huge porch overlooking the various birds, humming birds and one gigantic lizard eating fruit. They served food and there was a small bar and a small menu, so after our tour we stopped there to rest from the heat. All of us were on budgets so most people ordered the fried egg sandwich; I did not. When the plates arrived, it was clear that I had made a mistake. The fried egg was on homemade bread with lettuce and tomato, clearly the thing to order here. I had bites of my cousin Jenny's and my son Christopher's. Being in the middle of nature and eating something so simple, yet made so beautifully, was bliss.

There you have it. Simplicity at its finest.