Seeking shelter from late fall’s raging sou’westers usually means cuddling up on the couch underneath a quilt with a good book, or better yet, your honey, while hoping that the roof doesn’t disappear.

Another measure against the wailing wind and sideways rain, especially on a workday, is to savor a comforting morning meal you don’t have to make.

Following are some recent a.m. repasts I’ve enjoyed while listening to the blustery weather howl outside.

Lots of folks lost power during November’s spate of storms. The morning after it happened to me, I hightailed it down to the Lazy Spoon Cafe (No. 10 Sixth St., Suite 107, Astoria, (503) 325-4220), one of the few Astoria restaurants that serve a consistently satisfying breakfast. An omelet here proved a pleasing antidote to my unshaven, unshowered and unsettling a.m. I chose a fluffy vegetarian bursting with all the usuals and topped with sliced black olives and melted Swiss. Slivers of slightly browned potatoes are top-drawer, not undercooked or soft and soggy (and decidedly not pre-frozen prefab hash browns like you might find at other restaurants). Every visit is made even more memorable by affable owners Carlos Carrillo, the cook, and his wife Marlo. Plus, portions are big-league, and prices are right ($6.95 for the omelet) for such a plateful of morning delight.

A low-slung eatery halfway between Ilwaco’s salty port and its diminutive downtown, Don’s Portside Cafe (303 First Ave., Ilwaco, Wash., (360) 642-3477) is a morning haven for the plaid-shirt-and-suspenders set, a place where a diner at an adjacent table might well hone in on your conversation, even take you to task for your politics (as a woman did when disagreeing with one of my tablemates about the midterm elections). It’s all in the spirit of a neighborhood restaurant where patrons share ideas and opinions as readily as passing the maple syrup.

We needed to borrow more of the latter when our trio all ordered plattercakes ($4.50 for two), the Portside’s version of flapjacks. Delicately thin, but big enough in circumference to virtually cover a platter, these breakfast beauties taste somewhere between a crepe and a pancake and come laced with cranberries, blueberries or pecans. We opted for cranberries, which proved a tart counterpoint to the plattercakes’ mildly sweet buttermilk flavor.

Healthy and hearty aren’t always compatible concepts in restaurant kitchens (think French toast or pancakes slathered with butter and sugary maple syrup and you get the picture). Not so at the Blue Scorcher Bakery Cafe (1493 Duane St., Astoria, (503) 338-7473), an organic-everything bread purveyor and coffee shop in Astoria’s Fort George building, a restoration in progress. Everything here is back-to-basics chow that tastes swell. Most elementary on the modest menu – and indispensable for warming my innards – is a bowl of oatmeal “all the way.” Splashed with cream or maple syrup, sprinkled with raisins, dried apricots, cherries and cranberries and dusted with cinnamon ($3.50), it’s just the ticket to take the chill off a damp, dank morning.

I’ve always considered the 42nd Street Cafe (4201 Pacific Way, Seaview, Wash., (360) 642-2323) to be that rarest of restaurants: a comfort-food enclave with loads of functional flair. A dose of that pizzazz temporarily disappeared when breakfast went on a hiatus at this Seaview establishment, known for its interesting mix of locals and tourists at the morning meal. Hallelujah! As of Nov. 24, house-made conserves, pit ham and red-eye gravy again share table space with French-press coffee, mimosas, jambalaya omelets and beignets, those delectable New Orleans-inspired fritters dusted with powdered sugar. A lovely Hangtown Fry fortified with bacon, spinach, green onions and Willapa oysters ($9.50) set my post-turkey day palate straight.

Blaine Walker, who co-owns 42nd Street with his wife Cheri, made it clear in a recent e-mail that the return of breakfast at his cafe was overdue. “What makes this meal so special?” Walker opined in a recent e-mail. “It may be that I haven’t eaten anything for eight to 12 hours. I am always a little grumpy and anxious until I finally get some fuel in my system. Coffee is a stimulant, but not a fuel. What makes it really special is the luxury of sitting down and treating myself before my work starts, rather than waiting ’til the middle or end of the day, by which time enough problems may have arisen that the opportunity to relax and reflect are gone. When we give ourselves that time, we seem to be a lot more relaxed.”

Particularly when those seasonal sou’westers threaten to make our mornings a soggy windblown mess.

Contact the Mouth at The Daily Astorian, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103, phone (503) 325-3211 or e-mail mouth@dailyastorian.com