Tuesday, February 25, 2020

My Favorite Meal


Do you have a favorite meal? Mine is, hands down, breakfast.


Breakfast means, literally, break the fast. You’ve not eaten since maybe eight the night before.*
*(Unless you are the midnight by-the-fridge sort, which is an image I’ve only experienced watching movies/sitcoms. In real life, middle of the night is a time when the last thing I want to do is stand by an open refrigerator or even think about food.)

So now it’s eight in the morning. You’ve “fasted” for twelve hours, and you should be ravenous.

For me, this is the mystery of breakfast: I’m not hungry in the least. I don’t know why, I just don’t get that peckish sensation that precedes lunch or dinner. This makes breakfast a meal of complete non-urgent food choice.  
A long time ago I vowed to never eat something I don’t enjoy, (with the exception of social circumstances when someone else is in charge and I want to be polite) so breakfast is pure pleasure food.

It so happens that American food conventions also include my favorites as breakfast food. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, hot cereal, and...
coffee, blessed coffee.




I liken it to reading for pleasure. Not assigned books (whether for school, work, or a book club) or books that are “good for you,” as in must-read-because-it-won-the-Pulitzer-prize. But pure pleasure reading.
At the same time I abandoned “good for you” breakfasts, (bye-bye bran flakes and cold milk) I also vowed to never finish a book that didn’t resonate.

Life is too short.
            
So eat when you don’t have to, and read when you don’t have to. Life will be good.


6 comments:

Sherry Ellis said...

Breakfast is my favorite, too. It just seems so much more relaxed. The other meals involve stopping what you're doing to prepare them, then rushing through them to get the next thing on the list done.

Vijaya said...

Mirka, what a lovely post full of simple pleasures. One of our kids' favorite suppers is having breakfast foods--from the sweet variety like waffles and pancakes to the salty, like bacon and eggs. I am not a fan of any breakfast foods, except potatoes. We have a tradition of going out to eat at Waffle House after Midnight Mass.

Janie Junebug said...

My breakfast usually consists of a glass of milk. My tummy doesn't wake up and feel ready to eat something until I've been up for several hours. If frosted sugar cookies and milk make a meal, then that's my favorite. I don't know if it's lunch, supper, or a snack.

Love,
Janie

Jenni said...

I so love breakfast, especially all the "big breakfast" foods like pancakes and waffles, etc. I generally don't have time to make those, except on the weekends, but weekdays can be lovely too, especially if I have my favorite tea along with it or afterwards. I love your philosophy about eating and reading. That is why I refuse to finish books I don't like. :)

Evelyn said...

Fun post. My husband loves breakfast foods. That's his favorite go-out-to-eat meal. Me? I like just a bowl of cereal. When I was growing up, our family had a lot of restrictions about what we could do on Sundays, but Mom wanted us to love the Lord's Day and look forward to it, so that was the one day of the week when she always fixed us a special breakfast--pancakes, waffles, or French toast. She was right--I looked forward to it as a kid!

Mirka Breen said...

Breakfast lovers unite^!