A Favorite Delicious Fast Easy Nourishing Cheap Hot Supper from Long Ago

Enough salad for supper. Tonight, being OCTOBER! (who can believe it?) I wanted something hot.
When I was a student in Paris living in a corner room of Mme. Galetti’s apartment—40 rue des Ecoles—my pension included breakfast each morning (big bowl of coffee and all I could eat of bread fresh from the corner baker slathered with sweet butter and preserves, usually sour cherry) and lunches. Dinners were mine to roust up and usually I ended up sitting on my bed reading while eating a slab of open-face sandwich, also from the corner baker.
Occasionally of a Sunday afternoon, Madame would notice me lollygagging about, take pity on me, and invite me to join her and Monsieur for supper. It was at Madame’s table that I discovered Eggs Florentine. Only this dear plump middle-aged Belgian lady, forced to take in students to supplement her husband’s income from baking palmiers in the back room, would never put a fancy name to what she cooked. It was simply poached eggs on spinach.
I thought it a sublime combination.
I have made it a hundred hundred times in the fifty-five years since. Tonight, for example. No recipe needed--and it’s way easier than the dish Madame prepared, as she did not have spinach already blanched and chopped, much less a microwave oven.
What I do for just me or for half a dozen people is cook frozen chopped spinach according to package directions (yes of course I could use fresh), stirring in a mort of sweet butter after it’s cooked. Spinach with plenty of butter is spinach lifted to its highest power.
At the same time, I bring a little saucepan of water to the boil while slicing my loaf of bread then toasting it (olive bread tonight). Then I grate or cut in slivers a tasty cheese on hand…tonight I had a special teleme jack, but any cheese that is not too dominant is fine. You want not to overwhelm spinach’s intriguing and complex flavor.
When the water is boiling, I drop in an egg per serving (sure, you can do two)…time 3 minutes’ simmering (easy does it). I lightly butter the toast, set it on a plate and cover it with spinach, then use a slotted spoon to lift out the perfectly poached egg and lay it on the spinach. Sprinkle or strew over the cheese, season with a little salt and fresh-ground pepper, and that’s it.
Ah, Mme. Galetti, I wish you knew how pleasures of your table have endured in my life...