The Breakfast Ride

I love breakfast. No, I really, really LOVE breakfast. I'll eat it any time of day or night, and sometimes prefer it to meals of the lunch and dinner variety. My breakfast cravings are always the same: scrambled eggs, griddle cakes, potato pancakes, bacon, sausage, ham, and fresh salsa. The reality is that I rarely ever eat all those things together, except for once a year. And that one time a year is at the ranch on a thrice-weekly event called "The Breakfast Ride." This so-called Breakfast Ride to an Adobe in the woods is an extravaganza that sparked my love for breakfast almost 30 years ago.

The hard-core Breakfast Riders get up at 7am and ride horses to the Adobe. God bless 'em, I wizened up at the tender ago of 14 and opted out. The rest of us laymen – myself included – wake up at 8:30 and arrive to a 300+ horse-powered drawn wagon. We sit on bales of hay and let the cold morning air slap us awake as we're driven to breakfast.

Once arriving at the Adobe, an abandoned home discovered over a century ago in the hills of Santa Ynez Valley, the Breakfast Riders are greeted by a breakfast spread almost as historic as the venue itself.

Pancakes, perfectly poured.

Flip those flapjacks!

Bacon, sausage, ham, oh my!

Fluffiest scrambled eggs ever.

Life-changing potato pancakes.

Fruit spreads of all fruit spreads.

And this hour-long event is what began my love affair with breakfast. I was ruined forever, as no breakfast will ever match The Breakfast Ride, no matter how many Michelin stars it has. Simply put, you can't beat eating flapjacks (my husband refuses to call them pancakes, as we're "out on the range"), potato pancakes, bacon, sausage, ham, scrambled eggs, biscuits, gravy, a load of fresh fruit, baked goods and even handmade salsa. It's impossible, not to mention there is no other time of year that my parents, brother, myself, my husband and 50 of our closest "Ranchers" all get together at 8am and crawl onto a hay wagon for an outdoorsy breakfast. No showers, no makeup, no pretense. Just us and some really friggin' great food served next to a raging fire and to the tune of cowboy songs. That just doesn't happen in L.A.

But truth be told, the sentiment makes it taste even better. :)