Beanz on Toast

It is Thursday and I have a small hangover.

Today is the first day of my vacation - I'm heading back to the US this afternoon for a week and a bit of reuniting with family and, hopefully, with some friends too.

Admittedly, in Michele's absence, I have not been looking after the house as I should.  The mail is piling up, the tomato plants are nearly dead, the taxes remain undone.  I haven't been home much these past few weeks, so, desperate for something to fill the void in my belly and quiet the hammering in my head, I was dismayed to find almost nothing edible in the fridge.  As I'll be away for a while, and as today's rubbish collection day, I thought it would be a good idea to clean out the fridge before I go.  It was not.  If you've never scooped  rotten tuna salad out of a tupperware container after a heavy night, don't; or if you must, at least don't do it before breakfast.

The fridge finally clean and the sink filled with plastic containers, bits of furry green mould still clinging to their sides, I confronted the next problem of the day - what to eat for breakfast.  Since there was really nothing left after my cleaning binge (the top of the lettuce looked fine, but the black sludge in the bag suggested otherwise, and anyway, lettuce for breakfast isn't really my thing).  Eyes watering, still gagging occasionally, I turned to the cabinet.  And there, amid the packets of DeCecco fettuccine and the tins of anchovies left over from a dinner experiment gone horribly wrong, was a can of the best breakfast food on the planet: Heinz Beanz.

A uniquely British culinary experience, Beanz on toast is simple, healthy (well, if you don't slather the toast with great gobs of full fat butter as I do), tasty, and easily the best cure for a hangover short of a sauna and a full day's sleep.  Salvation!  Choirs of angels sang while a heavenly light shone down upon my cupboard.

I am now packed for my trip (everything fit into my backpack, with plenty of room to spare) and am waiting for an appropriate time to catch the tube out to the airport.  I have recently acquired Gold status on Virgin Atlantic (my favourite airline), so I will be availing myself of the Virgin lounge in Heathrow.  There are airline lounges and there are Airline Lounges.  Virgin's is most definitely in the latter category.  The free spa, with massages and haircuts, the tasty food, the chill-out music, the billiard table.  The great long bar with an impressive number of vodka bottles.  I am also hopeful that I will be bumped up from economy to upper, or at least premium.  Surely there aren't that many elite status customers flying on a Thursday afternoon?  We'll see.

I head back at stupid o'clock on the morning of the 14th, but if you're in the Poconos this weekend or the Jersey Shore Monday through Friday next week, drop me a line.  I hope I get to see you.