I don’t remember exactly when I first started liking a little salad with breakfast. It’s probably Hal’s fault — he’s more of a culinary pioneer than I am and has been known to eat all kinds of weird items first thing in the morning. Living at altitude 15 miles from a piss-poor grocery will do that to you. Planning and creativity are required.

Whatever. I like the way some lettuce and tomatoes look on the plate, drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil and a little salt and pepper, cuddled up next to the eggs, scrambled with green chile, garlic and chives.

And I like the way it tastes, too. Beats the mortal shit out of a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, a moon pie and a Co’-Cola.

• Update from on high: Hal advises from the Hardscrabble Times kitchens that breakfast today consists of a package of Stahlbush Farms frozen spinach thawed in a skillet over low heat, then sautéed with garlic and olive oil, with a half-dozen locally acquired eggs scrambled in along with some organic Parmesan. Sliced oranges are served on the side. Options for the carnivorous include diced Maverick Ranch or Larga Vista Ranch ham.

A light dinner last night called for a medium-heavy breakfast this morning. I’m talking eggs scrambled with chopped green chile and minced garlic, diced spuds with green chile, red bell pepper, scallions, garlic and cilantro, shredded lettuce and sliced tomatoes drizzled with olive oil, and a hunk of leftover grilled flatiron steak. Plus coffee, of course. A day without the velvety black goodness is a day without sunshine.

Speaking of beef, here’s a story you don’t want to read if you’re big on mystery meat. It’s straight out of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” I forwarded it to my man Hal, a meat-eater who is intensely interested in eating well and locally, and he replied, “This is why we raise our own.”

Hal was cooking for a couple dozen folks at a neighbor’s birthday party last night and drank wine with the gent who owns the plant that processes his beef, which when still on the hoof meanders around the neighborhood eating grass at 8,800 feet. Not many of us live this close to our grub, which goes a long way toward explaining how a young girl can wind up paralyzed from the waist down by eating a shitburger.

Interestingly, Hal also claims that there are “many more cases of food-borne illness from produce than from meat, fish, chicken and eggs combined.” I don’t know whether he’s right, but I do recall the salmonella-tainted jalapeños of 2008 and E. coli-contaminated spinach of 2006, clear indications that vegetarianism does not guarantee one a clean bill of health.