B – Breakfast
Maybe it’s an English thing, maybe it’s a guy thing but the meal that really seems to stir the emotions more than any other is breakfast. Sure, an intimate diner a deux, a three star gourmet blowout, fast food or even, God help us, barbecue have their place but there’s nothing like breakfast.
There can only be one explanation. Breakfast involves the application of fantastic comfort foods at the times when we are emotionally least able to resist.
We wake up as children, rub sleep from our eyes and are carried down to the kitchen still glowing and smelling like fresh baked Victoria sponge in our warm jammies. With nothing on our little minds except last night’s dreams, we’re fed boiled eggywegs and soldiers by strong and loving parents. Who could resist?
We grow up and, if all goes well, each morning we will awake, weakened by post coital glow or a roaring hangover – often both. In this condition, a lover or a kind friend slips us anything from eggs Benedict to warm croissants and again the bond is strengthened.
In maturity our relationships are burdened with complication and there’s rarely time to appreciate each other yet, fresh from sleep and with yesterday’s petty frictions forgotten a well timed full English can feel like the glue that repairs us.
Now, and best of all, there are mornings when my daughter and I get up together. With Mum asleep upstairs, she’s permitted the illicit luxury of sitting on top of the big prep table while I make her boiled eggs and serve her the froth from my cappuccino in an espresso cup.
“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons”. But I can’t forget the egg cups, toast racks, marmalade drips, butter stains, Rice Krispies and bacon rolls.