I HAVE always adored breakfast. It is my favorite meal. Ever since I was little when I read books about the olden days, such as the turn of the 20th century, there was something about that meal that spoke to me.
Unlike today when breakfast is enjoyed all too infrequently and is often a quick perfunctory exercise in downing some nutritious food before running out the house with a cup of hot coffee in hand, those breakfasts seemed like a nice morning time to savor, to sit and enjoy and be together before the hulaballoo of the day began.
In those stories, invariably, there was always a housekeeper who home-baked baskets of yeasty muffins and breads to be served before the meal even began. I guess thats what it is, breakfast was a meal. A real meal.
Of course the whole scene that charms me probably played out quite differently in reality. These people were up at the crack of dawn, waking up to no heat, getting dressed in the shivering cold while it was pitch black outside, then sitting down to their hearty breakfast to be eaten as fuel for the hard labor they were about to engage in and endure. OK, I just ruined that charming breakfast to pieces. Boy, am I a killjoy.
Still, there really is something to that breakfast meal though, isnt there? The day lies wide and inviting, still at its inception. The morning is soaked with warm coffee and plenty of possibility. People, still somewhat sleepy, have their defenses down, the mood is more open and a bit softer. You wont find fiery and intense table debates at breakfast. It is a time to sit down and take the morning a little more slowly. It is a time to share with the people you wake up to, the people you are very fond of. A time to fire up the waffle iron and set the teapot humming. If there were time for that on most days, it would be a dream, wouldnt it?
A COUPLE of years ago I almost started a food blog a food blog that is really about life. One of those in which food is the medium for having some real conversations. Anyway, the name for the phantom blog was going to be Breakfast at TGs (TG being a nick- name I have been nicked with), à la Breakfast at Tiffanys. It kind of has a ring to it, doesnt it?
I know what some of you are thinking. Breakfast? Time together? Languishing? Did she say no intense table debates?
Yes, yes. I know, there are all of you grumpy-in-the-morning people out there. I know, because I have lived with them. One roommate even left a poem she spontaneously wrote to me and left on my bed one morning about how she cannot talk for the first hour of the day. I assure you, I am not one of those chipper morning people, probably just more quiet, but definitely not grumpy.
I THINK I have cultivated my love of breakfast from Israel. It is such a part of the culture there. There is something to be said about those famous colorful, healthy and abundant early morning breakfasts. Those fruits and vegetables the land of Israel definitely being the finest in the world the breads and thin buttery sheets of croissants, the different hues and salty-garlicky flavors of olives, tangy creamy cheeses, sweet butter, jewelled jams, eggs all ways, and freshly squeezed juices.
Of course, it would be incomplete without the endless salatim, shakshuka and the intense coffee mist you inhale.
The best part? It is served all day. Whenever my friend Yedida and I got together we got into the tradition of ordering breakfast no matter what time of day it was. We got to calling it brinner.
My best Israeli breakfast memories rise from two holidays each year, Hoshana Rabba and Shavuot. We would wake up in the middle of the night when it was still pitch black outside.
Together with my father, sister and brother (who to this day, along with my mother, are my partners in crime in enjoying this breakfast thing) and often some friends, we would walk to the Kotel, the Western Wall. On these holidays there is a sunrise prayer service and so we, along with hundreds of other Jerusalemites, would flock to the Wall. As we got closer, the day would slowly break with the pink sun peeking through more and more, the chirping birds converging into one monolithic bird-song rising above us from the sky, by the time we arrived.
The prayer service was long, plus managing to navigate among thousands of people took time. By the time the davening was over it was turning to late morning. On some years, as a semi-annual treat, my parents took us out to one of the hotels for breakfast that we passed on our way home. The truth is, it was technically out of the way. It would have been easier for us to leave the Old City of Jerusalem via the Arab market. In those days it was the common path from our neighborhood to the Kotel.
Ah, but then we wouldnt have had the opportunity for the outing downtown. So somehow, on these two days, we always left through the Jaffa Gate that led us into town. That way we were treated to a special late morning Jerusalem family holiday breakfast outing.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
