The breakdown of civilization begins early.

by Fiona Murray

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast," once remarked Oscar Wilde, recreational libertine and routine late-riser. As a fellow sluggard, I'll have to take his word for it, and continue to frequent brunch: the company's better, the hours are more civilized, and, apparently, not having a civil word to utter before 10 a.m. makes one appear less witless.

Before you even smell the coffee, the mere concept of brunch smacks of indulgence-a slattern of a meal, it will hang around until you decide to show up, while the more proper and punctual breakfast plays harder to get. Not only do we keep similar schedules, but brunch and I share a sensibility. The foods for which I am most affectionate, the ones that are deeply satisfying and perfect for consuming with indolence, are partisans of the morning menu.

Ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter The recipe says to mix ricotta mixture well; don't. (This may be sneaky Bill ensuring yours aren't quite the same as his.) Just mix lightly with a big metal spoon-to allow ricotta pockets throughout. Hotcakes 1 1/3 cups fresh ricotta ¾ cup milk 4 eggs, separated 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder Pinch salt 3 tablespoons butter Honeycomb butter 2 sticks (½ pound) unsalted butter, softened Sugar honeycomb, crushed with rolling pin (Use a Cadbury Crunchie bar; available at The Village Cheese Shop, Schmidt's Market or stockists of English candy.) 2 tablespoons honey To serve Banana (or strawberries) Confectioner's sugar for dusting 1. Make honeycomb butter first. Place all ingredients in a processor and blend until smooth. Shape into a log on plastic wrap, roll up, seal and chill for 2 hours. 2. Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add to the ricotta mixture and mix until just combined. 3. Place egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold egg whites through batter in two batches, with a large metal spoon. 4. Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of the butter and drop 2 tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan (don't cook more than three per batch). 5. Cook over low to medium heat for 2 minutes, or until hotcakes have golden undersides. Turn and cook on other side until golden and cooked through. 6. Transfer to a plate and quickly assemble with other ingredients. 7. Slice one banana lengthways onto a plate, stack three hotcakes on top with a slice of honeycomb butter. Dust with confectioner's sugar. Note: Hotcake batter can be stored for up to 24 hours, covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator. You can store leftover honeycomb butter in the freezer and slice as required-it's great on toast!

Eggs, of course. Creamy and pale yellow, coaxed rather than scrambled, into large velvety curds, on a tablet of sourdough toast. Or home-baked banana bread, cut into slices that could pass for paperweights, toasted, buttered and dusted with confectioner's sugar. Pancakes filled with pockets of ricotta, fluffy and nebular, drizzled with honey. Food that is simple but luminous.

Regardless of the season, brunch has always been a sunny meal for me, a mood lifter; maybe it's the fresh orange juice, or the free-range glow from my plate, or that when I was a kid we would stop for weekend brunch on the way home from the beach, dining outside, at warm sidewalk tables, because we had sand on our feet.

To anyone with an appetite and an audience, talking about food is a seduction second only to eating it. Until "foodies" (cringe!) excite themselves with the overworked exercise of my-ultimate-last-meal selections. They'll plumb the depths of their sophisticated tastes to request cheese aged in some far-flung moldy cave, or rillettes made from organic hand-massaged-pig jowl. For me, one meal springs to mind, consistently, and it goes like this: There is one soft-boiled egg. A pale-blue eggcup. Buttery toast soldiers. Freshly squeezed orange juice in a tall thin glass. A fresh sourdough loaf with pats of cold butter, white and sweet, and apricot jam. A pot of tea and a jug of milk. Bliss.

I elevated the humble "soft-boiled" to top-shelf status a couple of years ago, after embarking on a gastro junket to the Scottish Highlands. Now I won't have a word said against the Scots, or their sod-the birthplace of my ancestors-or their food, for that matter, which unfairly gets a bad rap. The produce there is stellar-best oysters you'll ever have in your life-but a thrifty Scot hates to throw things away, so traditional culinary techniques pretty much revolve around refuse. Even those based more around pillaging than palate, have failed to become obsolete. ("Just going to be on the road for a while, lass. Do you have anything I can carry my lunch in? Yep, this sheep's bladder should do nicely.")

Bircher muesli with pear and blueberries 2 cups rolled oats ½ cups pear juice 2 pears, skin left on and grated ½ cup natural yogurt 4 tablespoons toasted chopped almonds ½ cup blueberries Put the rolled oats, barley and rye in a bowl with the pear juice and leave to soak for 1 hour, or overnight, in the fridge. Add the grated pear and yoghurt and mix well. Spoon the muesli into serving bowls and top each with toasted almonds and blueberries. Serves 4.

So I traveled shackled to an entourage of robust food writers, while they gorged on offal and organs like madmen. It became a routine cleansing ritual to rise late each morning, and while the rest of the group were walking off a fried breakfast, up hill and down dale, I would sit in the deserted dining room and quietly feast on a soft-boiled egg. I returned from a rollicking gourmet safari to write a story extolling the pure and pleasurable formality of continental breakfasts and solitude.

On any Manhattan Sunday afternoon, long after first-light brunch crowds should have dispersed, you can stand, staking out an occupied restaurant table, and wait. And wait. An all-too recent Sunday, around 3 p.m., saw me leaning against a lamp-post on the Lower East Side, ravenous and maniacal, eyeing off the new breed of brunchers. These people hadn't rolled out of bed and been driven into the street by the lack of edibles in the fridge. They were groomed and fresh. They looked fed and watered. They looked like parishioners. A breakfast crowd.

There was a nana, with set hair and pearls and a cardigan. Bless her, but what was she doing here? She should be home having a roast, then being put down for a nap. And shiny co-ordinated couples, gorgeous, but there's no way these guys don't have a stocked pantry. And kids; kids galore. These lovely folk weren't here for a boozy, hair-of-the-dog-affair, or stomach-lining eggs. This wasn't necessity, it was an outing.

Scrambled eggs (for one) 2 eggs 1/3 cup cream Pinch of salt ½ tablespoon butter 1. Place eggs, cream and salt in a bowl and whisk together. 2. Melt butter in a non-stick frying pan over high heat, taking care not to burn the butter. 3. Pour in egg mixture and cook for 20 seconds, or until gently set around the edge. 4. Stir the eggs with a wooden spoon, gently bringing the egg mixture on the outside of the pan to the center. The idea is to fold the eggs rather than scramble them. 5. Leave to cook for 20 seconds longer and repeat the folding process. 6. When the eggs are just set (remembering they will continue to cook as they rest), turn out onto a plate and serve with hot toast. Note: If you are making more than two servings, cook separate batches so as not to crowd the pan.

Sunday brunch isn't for planners. It's for meanderers, amblers, the loosely attached. You wander in, you wander out. You can linger, unbooked, sans plan, then slowly ease into the street, to grab what is left of the weekend. This was out of natural order.

With me there's about a 15-minute window between hunger and lunacy. So after a grueling half-hour on the curb-during which I suspiciously eyed, then eye-rolled, a cumbersome pregnant woman as she moved to the front of the queue-I barged up to the maitre d' for the third time, just in case he'd forgotten about the pacing head-case in front of his window. He had a "small table in the back section" if I "can't wait." Well detected: lead the way, Sherlock. In but a few minutes my cohort and I found ourselves snugly seated in a sunken back room, previously reserved for patrons with scurvy and multiple ADD children. As the inflated toddler behind us let out a wail, we ordered a round of drinks and toasted to my last fabulous brunch in Manhattan.

Now that I've bunkered down in the Hamptons for summer, I am rediscovering the simple art of staying in. But staying in well. There are pastoral sunrises to enjoy, then early beach walks, and just-picked items to buy at bountiful farm stands, and my overeager houseguests are loving it all, so that by the time I rally, the kitchen looks like a grocer's, and the lazier luxury is to stay put and cook.And while attitude may be de rigueur in the stress-soaked city, acting barking-mad on the street is not part of my riviera persona.

When it comes to making sublime, pared-back brunch fare, I always return to the recipes of chef Bill Granger. A smiley, pastel-wearing bloke, he built a global cookbook empire off the back of a single pancake recipe: his cult-status ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter. He adapted this current version from a recipe he found in an old cookbook, substituting cottage cheese with ricotta.

In my opinion, these recipes listed here are his top-three, no-frills offerings to cover all the brunch bases. The hotcakes are light and air-filled, but with a sweet creamy taste-they are perfect for an indulgent group brunch. (You have to separate eggs for these pancakes, but that's why they don't feel like lead in your stomach.) His scrambled eggs (possibly the world's best) are a quick creamy luxury for one; and the even-a-child-could-do-it Bircher muesli is a delicious and natural energizer to make on the run (for extra decadence, throw in some chopped dates when you soak it and it takes on a caramel-like texture.) All are ridiculously simple. And handy items to have in the repertoire; I promise they're more satisfying than almost any brunch you would queue for.

And over the summer, if supplies dwindle as I wait for the weekend to roll around, at least I can make the meal of my dreams. One soft-boiled egg... You know the rest.

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