Wasn't it the Wheaties box that was labelled "The Breakfast of Champions"? I wonder if it still is.

I was more of a corn flakes or raisin bran person myself, having moved on from the eggs and sausages or bacon and toast of my early years. I shudder to think of such a breakfast now.

My breakfast for the last couple of years has consisted of coffee (always!), a handful (1/3 cup) of mixed raw nuts, and about 1.5 ounces of cheese (there's an Irish cheddar that is just heavenly).

As I move away from meat and milk products, I have tried to give up the cheese, but every morning it still finds its way into my lunch bag and so on to work. A bite of cheese and a cup of coffee is something I look forward to every morning--Breakfast of Champions, version 2.0.

My mother told me that our ancestors who worked their New England farms had very substantial breakfasts--fried salt pork, half a dozen eggs, sausages or bacon, half a loaf of bread, sliced, toasted and slathered with butter.

With high cholesterol a family trait, you'd have thought that they might have dropped dead of heart failure early in life, but actually most of them lived well into their 80's. Makes me wonder about that much-touted connection between high cholesterol and heart trouble....

I'm going to drown my sorrows in another cup of coffee. Bye.