12 August Friday

How do you breakfast? Do you like it when people use breakfast as a verb or do you think it is pretentious? Do you do breakfast? Do you take breakfast? Where will you take your breakfast this morning Madame? Of course, getting breakfast is popular. Meeting for breakfast is good, though not as popular as meeting for lunch. I take my breakfast alone in the nook.

I do not like to eat anything “substantial” for a couple of hours of being awake. My appetite is not in focus and nothing sharpens it like suddenly becoming ravenous around noon. Doughnuts and sweets upset an empty stomach. Big Denver omelettes with toast and hash browns? Bring ’em on, but later. James Beard disliked the word brunch because most people ordered breakfast dishes and thought we should just acknowledge that we like to breakfast later in the morning and just call that breakfast. I kind of agree with this. It’s almost as though we view brunch as a slightly-guilty weekend pleasure instead of, perhaps, our body’s preferred way of grazing. Perhaps it’s the bottomless Mimosa.

It must have been our Puritan ancestors that instilled the idea that breakfasts should happen early and soon after waking. I am convinced it is the Protestants that did this. The Catholics encourage fasting before Mass, making the Sunday dinner pretty important from a blood sugar stand point. Second breakfasts have become popular. Breakfast for dinner is great. I think we should breakfast whenever we want, the only point being that we’ve not eaten for a long time before whenever we do it.

So what can I eat first thing in the morning? I am a toast and cereal kind of a guy, and today I stand in front of you as an advocate for homemade granola. First, it’s easy: 6 cups of grain, 1 cup honey, 1 stick’O butter, 1 medium-giant pinch of salt, used sparingly, nuts and raisins and whatever else. 325 15 mins, mix it around, another 10 mins or until it starts to brown slightly, take it out, cool completely (this is when it gets crunchy), and eat it.

This is what my breakfast looks like.

Second, granola (and its kissing cousin, Muesli) are the perfect balance of boring and filling and slightly flavorful and pleasantly crunchy chewy. Oats, either dry rolled or steel cut work in this, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Wheat germ, buckwheat, flax, pumpkin seed, Raisins, currants,walnuts, pecans, pistachios, orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, all or none of the above. Everything is elevated by tangy cold yogurt, this is well known.