Here’s what I love about the internets: almost everything. When I was getting settled into my blogger blog, I was clicking on that Next Blog thing and came across Stef Zucconi’s Famous for 15 Megapixels. I blogrolled it right away. Stef and I don’t have a lot in common. He’s younger and he’s a Londoner and his life is clearly a world apart from mine. I rarely fail to find it interesting, though. It’s well written and Stef’s takes on things always seem worth reading to me. My other blog gradually got very political, although that was not really my original intent. I started this one for the personal stuff and blogrolled Stef’s blog here, too.

After reading his latest post, I was wandering through his blogroll and found eggsbaconchipsandbeans. This is one of the truly great blogs. It’s by a Russell Davies and he devotedly, lovingly and enthusiastically reviews cafes and their eggs, bacon, chips and beans wherever he can. With pictures. And intense appreciation for detail. Talk about opening up the world. Sure, I’ve heard of beans and toast. Never seen them, but I think they’ve come up in Agatha Christie novels and may have been mentioned somewhere in an article about the Beatles I once read. And every schoolchild knows that what we in the USA call French Fries are chips in the UK. And what we call chips are crisps. I knew all that. I’m not totally without sophistication when it comes to international cuisine. But I was ignorant of eggs, bacon, chips and beans as a meal.

I could talk to you about knishes, pizza or egg creams all night, but where I come from, the way you eat eggs is with your choice of meat- bacon, ham, sausage or Canadian bacon - hash browns or homefries and toast. You may choose to forgo the meat and the occasional maverick will have steak and eggs. Eggs themselves can be done any style. The menu tells you so. Usually, though, they’re ordered sunnyside up, over easy or scrambled. That’s the way we do it in the metroplitan area of NY. The way you eat beans is with franks. Eggs and beans never meet at all. So this was truly educational. It’s the next best thing to being there.

This is the kind of thing that the internet does so well. You can pick up travel guides and learn about four and five star restaurants and you might be alerted to small cafes along the way, as a matter of necessity and budget. Magazines will report on all the foodie trends. It takes the internet to get comprehensive coverage of a single basic breakfast.