Breakfast You Must Try

There’s this tension. There are all these tensions that come about from being someone amongst everyone else. But specifically there is thing that makes little sense to a person who wants to cook for a table filled with people consumed by conversations.

But when you love to cook for one and eat on your own you will make for a terrible host.




All these mouths, they call out for varying touches to their meals; more lemon juice, no red onion, less pepper, no coriander but more cumin, more flavour, less flavour, nothing fishy, I’m more hungry than just salmon and salad, no garlic (I don’t know how you could think that).

And the thought of leaving someone dissatisfied with a meal; “Only if she had used extra virgin olive oil instead of grape seed,” or, “I would have preferred basil to thyme,” which would lead me to respond with, “I can already imagine we would not get along well.”




At the restaurant the other day I was standing up straight in my starch white apron above 90 teeny tiny shells of pastry. Three kinds of delectable fillings were in my mind. These things, which of course I would eat. Roasted aubergine with pea and mint puree and topped with feta. Swiss brown mushrooms that had been sautéed in garlic and butter until every single fungus trickled with delight as it sat baked under a sprinkling of lightly toasted pumpkin seeds. And lastly, smoked salmon with roasted fennel and lemon. And then my boss comes up to me in her matching white apron and in mid assembling she tells me, as if it was gospel, that salmon and fennel don’t go together and that I’ll need to learn that some things don’t compliment other things.




Sometimes there are just too many mouths to satisfy at a table filled with people, whom even though you love them, it can exhaust your brain and make you cry and you realize then, in those moments pre-tears that perhaps not every meal needs to be an occasion to host.




So when tears are looming, especially in the morning before you’ve eaten, why not be kind to yourself? Grab down that box of raw rolled oats, shredded coconut and any kinds of nuts you have and chuck everything you want in a bowl, perhaps even a sprinkling of thyme, in a bowl with a petit splash of milk, extra virgin olive oil and a teaspoon (or more) of honey and mix everything together. Spread this over baking paper on an oven tray, pop it in the oven and bake it until lightly golden. Once it has cooled, reach into your fridge and take out your fromage blanc (or yoghurt if you don’t live in France), fresh medjool dates and perhaps a roasted peach on the side and Bon Appetit!




Eat slowly, savouring every mouthful, and I promise a morning tear free and of great reflection. One day you will see that sometimes that is exactly what is needed; because what is life when it hasn’t be thought about?