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SOULFOOD SHAKEDOWN IN HUNTINGTON: THE COOKE'S INN TAKES ON BREAKFAST, TOO
By Ron Beigel

Did you ever wake up hungry on a Sunday morning and ask yourself, "Where can I get some pork chops smothered in onions and gravy? Or some fried catfish?" Or maybe you've got a yen for a stack of pancakes with fried chicken?

Well, since this past March, Juanita Cooke has opened up The Cooke's Inn, her soulfood/Creole diner in Huntington, for breakfast at 8 a.m. on Sundays (only), rustling up these unusual down-home dishes to gutsy gluttons willing to forego their Frosted Flakes or bagel for one morning.

Breakfast here is unlike anything you'll find on this side of the Mason-Dixon line, or at least the Nassau/Suffolk line. Dense but light biscuits, even lighter corn bread, hot grits that can be livened up with sugar or hot sauce and good old home fries surround Southern hemispheres of eggs, which come with the aforementioned lightly battered and fried catfish ($6). Eggs, bacon and Casey's hot sausage ($6.25), made with Habañero peppers, will kickstart your day faster than caffeine. So will the three-egg omelet ($6), overflowing with collard greens and enough incendiary jerk pork to make Tony the Tiger growl "Grrrrreat" and then yelp in peppery pain. For less spice, try the Andouille sausage western omelet ($6.50). All omelets can be ordered in a handy waffle cone in case you feel the need to walk your eggs around.

Early risers craving something less exciting will love sausage patties and thick-cut slices of smoky bacon with their eggs ($6), perfectly fried, not fatty, not burnt. Corned beef hash and jerk pork hash are other great alternatives.

I, of course had no choice but to order the two strangest items on the menu. Scotch Eggs ($6) and Breakfast Soup ($5), not having the foggiest idea what was to be put before me. The soup, an invention of Ms. Cooke's, is a sweet broth with chopped vegetables and two poached eggs floating on top. Interesting to say the least. Not what one would ever expect on a breakfast menu and very different. Scotch Eggs fulfill the promise of the sign outside, which proclaims "international" cuisine. It's a traditional Scottish dish made with hard-boiled eggs encased in a shell of ground sausage and flour, then deep-fried. The sausage in this case is Casey's hot sausage. Talk about a wake-up call.

Ever since Ms. Cooke opened her labor of love in a small storefront on a desolate stretch of Depot Road, a few miles from here, word spread of her world-class fried chicken. There were always lines out the door until she reclaimed this large diner on the outskirts of Huntington Village in October of 2000. The fried chicken is still world-class and now you can have it for breakfast with large fluffy pancakes on Sundays, or without the flapjacks as an entrée for lunch and dinner.

They still knock you out at suppertime with Pork Ribs ($17) that are Flintstone-sized gargantuan slabs featuring remarkably small bones and pounds of saucy meat. A bowl of Gumbo offered as an appetizer ($6) or as an entrée ($16) is spicy, but not third-degree burning. It's thick with chunks of Andouille sausage and large shrimp. The requisite side dishes that come with every meal always blow my mind. Served family style from large platters, the carbs keep on coming, with our waitress bringing shoestring sweet potato fries dusted with powdered sugar, potatoes fried perfectly to a golden brown crunch, sweet corn pudding and collard greens.

At lunch I like the two-fisted BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich ($6.95) with great chunky homemade potato salad. Soup comes with it; I can't pass up a bowl of the Jerk Chicken Soup. It's exactly what you'd think it would be: a bowl of aromatic, spicy broth with rice and chunks of meat. The homemade potato chips that come with everything are worth the trip alone.

This bright diner charms with mix-and-match chairs and tables, flowery vinyl tablecloths and little picket fences in the windows, lined with children's books. Ms. Cooke appears now and then from the kitchen to chat up the returning hungry hordes and new faces.

What about the smothered pork chops you ask? Are you crazy? At this hour? You try them and let me know how they were.