Today I want to write about breakfast. I love reading about food, so I might as well write about it! I love breakfast because it starts off the day. It gives you energy for what lies ahead, and best of all, it looks really cool. Instagram is full of fancy breakfast pictures for a reason. It’s ~so~ aesthetic.
Some of my favorite breakfast foods are: Eggs. Scrambled with garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper. On the plate they look fluffy and a rich sort of yellow. Or fried eggs with a dense, almost orange yolk in the center. The white surrounds the yolk like a thick doily. The edges are crispy and curled up a little. Or even hard-boiled eggs, peeled the right way. Taken straight out of the pot and into cold water, tapped against the table, and peeled with the water still running. The shell comes off like an orange peel.
Waffles. Textured, with little cubicles, waffle offices. Warm, with a melting pat of butter in the middle and maple syrup waterfalling down the sides. I put blueberries inside the cubicles – workers at the office. Raspberries, almonds, cheerios work there too. Anything really. Or pancakes. They are so hard to make correctly. The batter is always fine. Light cream color, not too many lumps, and thicker than milk but thinner than frosting. I grease the pan with oil, then with butter, then with cooking spray, because it won’t stick this time. It can’t.
I ladle the batter on and wait for it to bubble. Of course, it sticks. Pancake scramble, again.
Sometimes I eat dinner for breakfast. Warm rice noodle soup with vegetables and beef. Halved sweet potatoes, fresh out of the oven and covered in my classic garlic-powder-paprika-olive-oil mixture. Salt and pepper too.
I like to switch it up and eat breakfast for lunch. Not like what they give you in elementary school, plastic-like sausages and indestructible pieces of bread. I’m talking a fat bowl of oatmeal. Oats, whole brown flax seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds. Sesame seeds. Coconut sugar and cinnamon. And best of all, blueberries. Drench it in almond milk, nut milk, pea milk or a combination of all of them. Oats are the best when they have been sitting for a while. Then they are cakey and dense, but still moist. The sugar or syrup has melted into the mixture, giving it the perfect amount of sweetness. Natural sweetness. Not like Sour Patch Kids sweet. Like real sweet.
I like avocado for breakfast too. I love how perfectly spherical the pit is and the shadow it casts on the green flesh. It’s not a bright green, and it’s not a dark green. It’s a deep, medium green. I love when food has deep color like that. Some foods, like boiled eggplant, are dull-colored and translucent. Even the purple skin is faded and blends in with the rest of the stew.
When I want a healthy breakfast, I take an egg or two and crack them in a bowl. I add some almond milk and break the yolks with a fork. They bleed. Paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper go into the bowl. Then I use my wrist to move the fork, blending everything together and creating little air bubbles. I grab my small circular pan. I grease it heavily. I can’t have it sticking this time. Not today. I put the pan on the stovetop, pour in the egg mixture and turn the heat to medium-high. Then I wait.
When the edges of the egg-circle are solid, and the outer area is almost cooked, I take a spoon and start lifting. Sometimes, the patty is perfect and I can flip it without a problem. Most times, flakey, dry, burnt egg residue is glued to the bottom of the pan and I roll my eyes in frustration. Either way, a circle is a circle. When both sides are cooked, I place the patty onto a rice cake that is somehow always the same size. I like to put vegan cream cheese on the rice cake, if there is any left in the fridge. Then I take a bite, feeling the crunchy, bland rice cake combine with the smooth, cold cream cheese and the fluffy spiced egg. Yum.