CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: DINERS ARE HAVENS OF GREASE IN A WORLD OF ARUGULA

Some days it's best to get your salt, grease and cholesterol early and get it over with.

Every now and then, I wake up with a craving for a real breakfast.

Not cereal, not Pop Tarts, not those low-fat, high-fiber cereal bars with the fruit in the middle and flavor nowhere to be found. Breakfast. An honest-to-goodness meal requiring a non-paper plate and more than one piece of silverware.

To me, a "real" breakfast is cooked -- preferably by somebody else.

Real breakfasts include bacon, eggs, toast and, if I'm in an expansive mood (and after all that bacon and eggs, I'm definitely expanding), hash browns.

I say real breakfasts are cooked. What I really mean is, a real breakfast is fried.

I can only eat large amounts of fried food early in the day. Too much fried food at lunch or dinner sends me into a coma.

Besides, it's probably best to get your salt, grease and cholesterol early in the day and get it over with.

That way it all has lots of time to settle into your arteries and trigger a massive coronary.

Efficiency is everything.

Real breakfasts -- i.e., real fried foods -- entail a trip to a diner. Diners have great fried food, because the cooks have worked out the perfect food-to-grease ratio.

It's not rocket science, but it does require a certain skill.

And diners have lots of coffee. Even now that I'm reduced to drinking decaf, it's important that large amounts of it be readily available.

And diners have formica, which I'm convinced makes food taste better, probably because it doesn't absorb all that grease.

Does anyone else notice a theme here?

It's hard to find a real diner anymore. Most have gone the way of the dinosaur and leaded gasoline.

True diners have counters where customers can be seated. Now if a restaurant has a counter, it's probably to hold the salad bar.

And real diners serve plate lunches, complete with gravy and mashed potatoes, and a choice of two vegetables.

And waitresses who remind you to eat those vegetables.

I like simple food. Raspberry vinaigrette makes me think the cook (excuse me, chef) is trying to hide something.

And while nouvelle cuisine makes a nice change from meatloaf, I'm really never sure what I'm supposed to eat. Every time I think something is a garnish, it turns out to be my salad.

But those three perfect free-range new potatoes sprinkled with wild sage look very pretty on the plate.

It's nice to know there are still places in the world where you can get an arugula-free meal, real coffee and sometimes even a little conversation to go along with it.

Does that come with fries?

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missouri.