Thinking about breakfast

This week I’m going to be thinking about breakfast, and this is something I wrote a couple of years ago on the subject. I once mentioned here that I’ve never been able to keep a diary, I just don’t know how to write one; someone very kindly replied that what I wrote here is something like a diary, and yes, I guess it often is. It’s interesting looking at past posts and seeing how our lives are changed. I wrote this when both our adult children were still living at home:

Because of the way our family is at the moment – children going to work, one with  shifts and varying start times, us with our clubs, classes and rendezvous, we breakfast separately. We each do our own thing  – some have cereal, some don’t, some always like something cooked, some don’t, some like eating leftovers in weird combinations, or smoothies, or fruit… so we don’t sit down to breakfast together. However, when friends and family come to stay that is different! Then we do like to set the table and all sit round conversing and discussing the day ahead.

I came across an abstract of an article entitled ‘Now About Breakfast…’

Breakfast ought to be a comfortable affair – it should be hot, fresh, and easy to eat… Having it in bed is usually thought of as a luxury, possibly as a trouble to the housewife, but it need not be so even if she has to prepare it herself, for a tray is little more trouble to prepare than to lay a table.. By giving breakfast in bed she can inoffensively keep visitors out of her way while she gets on with her regular morning chores
Don’t allow the tray to be overcrowded. Look it over  and see everything required is on it. If you like getting up early her is quite a deal of preparation that can be made the night before. The table or trays may be laid, the fish boned, the bacon trimmed. Do not make the tea early in the proceedings, but just a minute or two before everything else is ready. The toast must be crisp, and it also should not be cooked too early. Do not pile it in a heap, but keep the slices apart and upright until ready to be put in the toast-rack. When the bacon is to be grilled, lay the fat part of one rasher over the lean of the next so that the ft becomes and without the lean becoming hard.

When we have guests or it’s a day like Christmas Day when we do breakfast together, the table is laid with cutlery, crockery, packets cereal, milk, sugar, jam and condiments. One of us, him or me usually does the cooking, but tries to arrange it that the bacon/eggs/sausages/whatever all arrive at the same time so we can join the table. There is something very nice about breakfast, sitting round sometimes in pyjamas, discussing what the plans are and catching up with any gossip we missed since the last time we were together.

These days I write first then drift downstairs for something to eat… maybe today I will have a simple fried egg on toast… maybe I will do what I first enjoyed when we visited our daughter in the States, have it with a few slices of avocado between egg and toast… and coffee of course!!