It had been a while since I'd been to Claire's for breakfast, so I was glad to see things just as creative and homemade as always (the motto below the name of the 10-year-old café is, after all, "Honest Food, Inc."). Claire's house-brand jams (the strawberry-rhubarb is in season), the unusual hash variations, the nod to several cultural traditions for breakfast, the fresh-out-of-the-oven lunch specials -- all are served up in a knotty-pine cottage with a diner-like counter at one end and 10 green plants hanging from the ceiling at the other. And those plants are straightforward, homegrown philodendrons, not fancy ferns.

Even the prose of the menu takes you by the collar and says, "Listen up." No surprise that owner Claire Reynolds, who worked her way around the world by cooking on sailing ships for 12 years, had completed an English degree at URI since we last talked with her. She devotes a whole paragraph in the lunch listings to why she decided to serve only breakfast on the weekends but will make exceptions for people who "can't face another egg" and fix them a sandwich instead. Reynolds also throws in a "roofing tile" for $14.95, between the grilled ham and cheese and the tuna melt, "just seeing if you're awake."

Obviously we were, since we found those lines, but we could still face eggs. The breakfast items are also hand-written on boards above the counter and in the dining room. Eggs are offered Texas-style, on chili, with jalapeno corn bread; Irish, with bangers and grilled tomatoes; Portuguese, with chourico and cheese on bolo (a sweet-bread bun); scrambled with kielbasa (Polish), with lox and onions (Jewish); or Midwestern, with baked ham and cheese.

Three-egg omelets include a "B & B" -- bacon and brie -- and a "harvest," with apples, onions, and sausage. Eggs also make it into pancakes (buttermilk, chocolate chip, fruit, or very berry), French toast (Texas, Portuguese sweet bread, or raisin bread), and breakfast sandwiches. A low-fat version of the latter uses smoked turkey, nonfat cheese, and egg whites.

Bill and I went for the most glamorous eggs, poached atop a Benedict -- traditional, veggie, or deluxe -- and easy over on hash. Perhaps the hash variations stem from Reynolds's sailing days, when she needed to use whatever was at hand. I've always found them a great mark of her dedication to home style cooking, and whether it's corned beef or chourico, roast chicken or quahog, spring lamb or fresh salmon -- the last two were offered on the day we visited -- the hash is newly prepared, expertly crisped, and excellently seasoned. Bill's salmon hash was yummy, with eggs, home fries, and toast ($6.50).

The veggie Benedict was equally delicious, with plenty of grilled peppers, onions, and summer squash, plus fresh spinach, beneath the most perfectly poached eggs I've had in a long time. Though cook Chris Rucker was turning out our food, Reynolds gave us a tip about the poaching: add a bit of vinegar to the water. The Hollandaise was not very lemony, but the taste of the veggies made up for it.

The most popular sandwiches at Claire's are the blue Popeye (a hamburger with spinach and blue cheese), and the grilled, marinated chicken breast ($6.25 each), which Bill favored. I ordered the "turkey (yes, it's real)" for $3.95. Unwrapping these take-out goodies at the top of dunes overlooking the ocean in Provincetown, the destination of our day-trip, we were quite pleased with our lunches and the creamy side portions of coleslaw. And, after a big declaration that I don't like peanut butter and chocolate together, I gobbled down the homemade PB/chocolate chip cookies, appreciating the crunchy texture (while still maintaining that any chocolate flavor gets lost next to the peanuts).

Sampling our take-home desserts when we returned home that evening, we found them comforting (warmed up) and old-fashioned. One was "Yankee Creole bread pudding," the other an apple-cranberry crisp ($2.95 each). The bread had been thoroughly soaked by the pudding as it baked, so that it was like a dense fruitcake, with dried cranberries, nuts, coconut, and a brandy butter topping (the Creole touch). The crisp was a little too sweet, but its topping was nice and crunchy. Claire's also has whole pies, Caribbean rum cake, and cheesecakes that may be ordered four days ahead.

But you have to work up to those. Take the drive to Portsmouth for breakfast or a weekday lunch special (beef pot pie and salmon Florentine, for example). And ask to see the written menu. There's more to the writing than I've conveyed, including a cover quote from the 18th-century gourmand Brillat-Savarin: "Only wise men know the art of eating." Wise men and Claire Reynolds, that is.

Issue Date: May 31 - June 6, 2002