Revealed: The extremely controversial breakfast surf stud Laird Hamilton doesn’t want you to know about

"A hooker of hollandaise."

We live in fraught times where every single movement made is interpreted immediately and directly. Does a neighbor wear a red baseball cap, for example? Well certainly she is branded as dangerously far right and an insurrectionist. Do the children enjoy drawing sidewalk chalk rainbows in the driveway? Well certainly they are proto-LGBTQ+ attempting to cross dress in libraries. No wave of the hand nor wink of the eye is simply just a wave of the hand or wink of the eye anymore. They are secret messages to likeminded cabals.

And then there is breakfast.

How we start the day is, of course, important and let us introduce surf stud Laird Hamilton. The Malibu by way of Maui maestro came up just hours ago on David Lee Scales and my weekly chat. There is a segment on The Grit! entitled Pros in the Wild in which listeners share personal experiences with surf greats. It has become so popular that there is now a Reddit feed and, below, we have a sample

During the days of Riding Giants I cooked at a small cafe on Maui. I regularly cooked Laird Hamilton breakfast. A double lox Benedict with avocado. It was probably close to 4lbs of food. After an awkward introduction by the cafe owner I randomly came across Laird in the Seattle SeaTac airport. I could almost see the sense of dread on his face when we locked eyes. I acted like I had no idea who he was and kept walking… I imagine that was a great relief to him. Everyone loves their peace.

Benedicts.

The most hotly debated origin story meal of all time to say nothing about tossing double lox and avocado on top. But let us turn to The Original Pancake House, Denver Division, for more on this wildly polarized tale.

Eggs Benedict is a breakfast and brunch classic whose origins are hotly debated in some epicurean circles. There are several credible stories about how Eggs Benedict origins, and published references to this dish dating back over 100 years. Back in 1942, a retired New York stockbroker named Lemuel Benedict gave an interview to The New Yorker magazine in which he claimed he walked into the Waldorf Hotel 48 years earlier in 1894 looking for a cure for his morning hangover and reportedly ordered “buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon and a hooker of hollandaise.” According to this version of the story, the maître d’hôtel Oscar Tschirky was so impressed with the dish that he put it on the breakfast and luncheon menus, but substituted ham and a toasted English muffin for the bacon and toast.

Another version of Eggs Benedict origin published in a column in The New York Times magazine in September 1967, a man named Craig Claiborne wrote about a letter he received from Edward P. Montgomery, an American living in France. In the letter Montgomery supposedly related that Eggs Benedict was created by Commodore E.C. Benedict, a banker and yachtsman, who died in 1920. Montgomery included a recipe for the breakfast dish, stating that he received it from his mother, who had received it from her brother, who was a friend of the Commodore.

I drink coffee, black, for breakfast and that’s all.

Legitimately nothing to see here, folks.

Or is there?

More as the story develops, per the usual, but while you’re here, don’t you want to listen to the story of how Kelly Slater lost his baby toe?

Bon appetit.

Chas Smith
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