Bread and Breakfast
Bread and Breakfast
Chronicle: Albuquerque, New Mexico, July 3, 2024
Greetings Chroniclers! This week, a bit about my love for breakfast and some photos. What are your favorite ways to start your day? Coffee, tea, meditation, a small meal or a pretty big meal, like I enjoy eating most mornings. Thanks for being here.
A friend of mine asked me recently why I liked breakfast so much. “What’s so special about breakfast for you?”
Controversy surrounds eating breakfast. So many people are absolutely opposed to eating breakfast. Period. They’re content to not eat nothing until midday, or later. Others are satisfied with a bowl of cereal or oatmeal, or a smoothie with a coffee chaser. In Italy, breakfast is usually the smallest meal of the day, consisting of a quick cappuccino and a sweet pastry, often consumed at the neighborhood bar. Makes sense right? Prosecco by night, cappuccino or latte by day.
But I’m a BIG BREAKFAST eater. I am decidedly unsatisfied, grumpy in fact, with a cup of coffee for breakfast. Sometimes, I fantasize I could live an Italian life, that I harbor an inner Italian person (think Sophia Loren here), but I can’t survive the morning (neither could you if we were together IRL) without something pretty substantial to eat.
Somewhere along the way, my body decided it needed the bulk of the days’ calories in the first half of the day. I go to bed thinking of what to eat in the morning, wake up ravenous, and begin most mornings peering into the refrigerator, sort of wishing I was someone who could drink a bright green smoothie and not be hungry again in an hour. If I were a Sesame Street character, I’d be a cross between Oscar and Cookie Monster.
Lunch used to be my favorite meal of the day. I’ve shared this before but when I was young, school aged young, the thought of eating breakfast made my stomach roil. I will forever remember my mother saying, ‘You have to at least drink a glass of milk before school. You have to put something in your stomach”. To this day, I hate drinking milk. My dairy consumption is confined to cheese, yogurt and the occasional indulgence in ice cream.
As usual, Mom was right. I tried to drink that milk she promised would fill my stomach. But there were quite a few days my stomach couldn’t stomach drinking that milk. So, with only one option in front of me, I did the only thing I could. I poured the milk down the drain behind my mother’s back. Predictably, by the time I got to school I was so hungry I could barely concentrate. In those days of long division and memorizing the state capitols, lunch couldn’t come fast enough.
These days, lunch is my second favorite meal of the day.
I’m an early bird. The minute my eyes open, I’m ready to eat. People who start their day with coffee and then get around to eating a bit of breakfast at 9 or 10 in the morning are like aliens to me. By 10 in the morning, I’m jonesing for a snack, fighting off a case of the hangries, until I can lay my hands on some nuts or some fruit and yogurt, anything with protein and a few carbs to help me make it to lunchtime.
Yesterday, someone asked me what my favorite breakfast is after I shared that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Here’s my answer…ready?
My favorite breakfast is leftover dinner.
Hands down.
Dinner leftovers, usually chicken or a veggie and quinoa dish make fabulous breakfast entrees. Especially if topped with an egg or two. If dinner leftovers aren’t available a grilled cheese sandwich is always a good option. And yes, sometimes an egg-topped grilled cheese sandwich just hits the spot.
There is only one non-negotiable.
Toast. Toast has to be on the menu every single day.
Okay, sometimes I make an exception to the toast rule. Here’s a case in point. Two mornings ago, I had sourdough pancakes. For a few seconds I was considering a piece of toast, but decided to draw the line at eating pancakes with a side of toast.
So, in answer to my friend’s question about why breakfast is my favorite meal of the day I say this.
Breakfast is about new beginnings. This may sound a bit schmaltzy but every new day feels like a great big possibility.
Breakfast is literally the act of breaking a sleep imposed fast. If you’re someone who can’t imagine eating anything until mid-morning, I cast no judgement. I might even envy you a bit. My body just does not seem capable of extending the overnight fast by even one minute after I awaken. So, I honor the dawn, and my hunger, by eating a sizable, substantial meal.
Tomorrow, I’ll be meeting a friend for a morning walk along the Rio Grande River before heading out to breakfast. Rest assured, I’ll most likely have a pre-walk piece of toast with peanut butter and jam to tide me over until I can order a pretty big, nourishing breakfast.
I can’t think of a better way to honor a new day.
It is incredible - you have just described my husband. However, breakfast is a big part of the meal. I grew up in a family where breakfast was a must and it used to be a big "affair" and I have continued to practice that in my own family. All my children eat well at breakfast and oh my goodness, when you say leftover for breakfast!!!! That in itself is a treat.
I loved reading about your love of bread and breakfast. I have many people similar to you in my life and we love it. Brunch is another of our favourite "go to" idea of breakfast and lunch and they have to be big absolutely.
Your writing is so good, it made me hungry and I actually made two eggs on a toast. :-)