breakfast with the OMophobe*
I groan and roll my eyes and mime various sexual acts when people get sentimental on the internet, sentimental in that way that involves self-realization with heart-shaped hands (except when it's you). I shouldn't. Those people are true to their truths and stuff. I am not. Not at all. That's why I make just-audible-enough phoot noises while they're cleansing the air and singing OM with a smudge stick. I deflect the glow of glowy-types because glowy-types espouse a seeking of the destination and I resent the suggestion that there is such a thing at all.
Is that it, though? It's a curious thing, contentedness. Enough-edness. The rallying cry to Be Present In The Moment. Or just Be Present. Or just Be. Why shouldn't others try? It's like The Gays. They don't run around through neighbourhoods in search of positionally vulnerable heterosexuals (SO SHE THOUGHT. MOOO-AAA HA HA HAAAA.). They're too busy coping with ordinary, regular lives. And that's all the Be Present movement is. They're not proselytizing. It's not about me at all. It's the search for contentedness - the illusion, the attempt - as a coping mechanism and sometimes, it comes out in sentimental ways. Like a showtune. Why not just let them be? Why the contempt via interpretive mime? The class clown is always the saddest. That frothy mixture of sage and self-esteem that follows a solstice bonfire: 'Inglisorum'. I hold a sign on the off-ramp: GOD HATES THE NEW AGE and there's a new-ager with a sign beside me and an arrow and it points at me and reads NOT STANDING IN HER TRUTH. I protest because a good smudging - more accurately, a faith in it, plus the renewal that might follow - is what I most fervently want, and the dreadlocked hoopers on the beach know it, and one of them runs a compassionate hand along my shoulders and I shudder.
Oooooh, thoughts. Thoughts and many more of them. Tempeh sausage with maple syrup and loosely scrambled egg all fluffy with a splash of milk and still-crispy asparagus and thickly-sliced beefsteak tomato fried with panko crumbs and small mushrooms quartered, peppered, and sauteed until brown. And heavy German bread, buttery toasted. And tea. Very, very hot tea.
What do you fear, desire, and counter with contempt? Or: what's the best breakfast?
Monday, February 6, 2012
Reader Comments (42)
nom nom nom
we have a new german bakery in town that supplies all the little coffee shops with multigrain croissants. they are unspeakably delicious.
All right, you're making me hungry...
Banana Bread with a Strawberry Banana Smoothie. My choice this morning, probably would have been better if I was sitting cross legged at the top of a hillside soaking in the sunshine and chanting. If I even knew how to chant...
and yeah, we're all one. we are. i believe it.
so there.
like a punch in the gut? really? no way. don't believe that .. .
The declarations from the internet rooftops never feel right when I read them so I usually eradicate them from my consciousness (i.e. feeders) which might stump my 'evolution towards truth' but hey, I'll never know that, right?
Brekky burrito :: 14" grilled tortilla wrapped around eggs, bacon, cheese, potatoes fried, fresh chopped cilantro/onion with a bowl of pico de gallo for scooping and Tabasco for the burn.
That's Nirvana. :)
-- Keep a daily gratitude journal, listing items for which you feel grateful.
-- Perform a meditation practice, or simply a few minutes of deep breathing and quiet reflection on something that made you happy. Consider what you can do to achieve that happiness again.
-- Make a habit of sharing the highlights of your day with someone close to you.
-- Practice forgiveness routinely.
-- Construct a list of all activities and experiences that relax and rejuvenate you. Use items from this list to manage your daily stress.
So far, I am appreciating the process. Transformed? No. Happier, probably. Except the days that I want to punch some jerk in the face or where I feel overwhelmed and under-capable.
My breakfast - oooh eggs benedict with smoked salmon instead of Canadian bacon (no offense to you Canadians - ha!) - light and fluffy hollandaise with a nice tang of lemon and a dash of tabasco on top. Fresh squeezed orange juice and steaming hot coffee.
Amiee, YOUR WAY. Hah. Exactly. Perfect.
Jen/LA, none of it's particularly fancy. And it really does rely on German bread, which has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with proximity. Besides. I live just up the road from www.bonniebonnielass.com. If you want a daily struggle with admiring/jealous resentment, look to her, not me. She's too much to bear. But when I'm just about to say "You're too much to bear" she hands me a slice of homemade bread slathered with butter and then I can't say it because my mouth is full and it is delicious.
Kate, I don't have to be 'all one' with people I disagree with, right? Like people who listen to Celine Dion or people who don't like tomatoes? That would suck.
Tash, I miss you. Shoulder punch/hug/weepy.
Elizabeth, I've been meaning to make polenta and poached eggs forever. You just reminded me.
Bethany, you've got the trick of it already. There aren't any answers but there ARE tomatoes and cheese and they're really good when they're fried in butter. The only worthy truth. Preach it.
Kelly, okay. Yup.
Paula, I saw Eat, Pray, Love and I also read the book. They weren't especially artful but I needed some marshmallow fluff all over my soul and there they were. Run away from all my angst to the beach, one of those foreign beaches that's got shamans and saris on it, and eat too much, and find a guy who likes The Plump? It's middle-aged woman life-porn.
And hey. Really? Everyone's saying they like rye toast, yet rye-lovers are nowhere in my life. Interesting.
it's the vulnerability that slays you -
as fer breakfast - daily, it's scrambled egg w/garlic and sauteed kale, cuz i have Such A Woody for leafy greens. but if were playing special, awesome breakfast of our dreams...?
2 eggs, over medium, laid over a coupla salvadoran papusas, smothered in green chile (like, REAL green chile. NEW MEXICAN PORK FILLED SPICE_TASTIC green chile), shredded lettuce (iceberg! which isn't even lettuce! SINFUL), tomatoes, black beans, avocado and sour cream. side of "weekend potatoes" (ie: cubed, fried, plus green pepper, onion, salty goodness, etc). bloody mary, extra horseradish, with 2 olives, one pickle and 3 pickled okra, cuz okra is almost as sexy as kale. homemade spelt blueberry muffin with that crunchy, buttery streusel topping for desert.
fuck yessssss. breakfast be my favorite of alla the meals.
Greek yoghurt. The full on fat good thick stuff. With a huge pile of rhubarb compote (baked rhubarb with sugar of sugar). And maybe some homemade granola on top for crunchies. Mine has coconut in it. Mmm hmmm.
Or waffles. the real, light fluffly kind with a pile of butter. The kind where you do it right and whip the egg whites. It must involve maple syrup and fresh fruit and if I'm lucky...whipped cream.
Of the lovely not-real croissants from the grocery store in scotland. Hot. With a pile of butter.
Homemade bread...toasted...with butter and my mother's homemade marmalade.
Hot buttery american biscuits. With homemade raspberry jam.
But really? If I had to choose? I'm all about a bacon butty. Warm scottish 'bap' (soft, floury roll) with a bit of butter, a pile of PROPER back bacon. Not that grim streaky american stuff. And a quick drizzle of brown sauce.
And tea. Earl grey for me. Hot, with milk.
And in case you were wondering if there was a theme here, apparently I'm all about the butter which shows two things. a) all I really need is some tarted up fat and I'm happy and b) we know all know why my butt is so sizeable.
xo
ps the best breakfast is really leftover apple crisp...not that I would ever own up to that.
So: crepes. ;)
(this may be a really similar version to a comment that is already posted, but I was (Unable to Post). Hmph).
And perfect breakfast has turned into perfect any meal-onions, portobellos, chard, ham sauted, dump in egg whites, some oregano and thyme, slather it in avocado mixed with habanero salsa, a little bit of almond milk...I'm addicted. I don't care how hipster south beach paleo WANK it sounds, it makes my tongue really freaking happy. SUPER happy.
The very simple and most obvious truth is that I won't ever feel like I am enough. And so fuck being enough. That's my instinct, and it's purely knee-jerk, and I know that by reacting that way, I'm missing out on what could be a change of mind and heart.
I've tended to see 'enough' from a different angle - that the only hope to achieve it is to detach from needing it. I worry that I've invalidated the expression of other people in doing so. If I have, I apologize. Aspiration is the last thing anyone should have to feel like defending. Especially one as worthy as that.
i pick at the scabs of watching people who parent like it is everything to them while simultaneously writing grand novels and columns and creating art and having careers. they wear makeup and go places and their kids are so happy and they have these lives. outside. i don't have the ability to do that. i am a mom right now. i can't juggle much else. my multi-tasking skill set has been modified to fit inside a tiny specific box of tools.
i think.
i must be doing it wrong.
(i think that's why i like reading people who curate their "perfect" lives. my masochist tendencies)
In the end
you won’t be known
for the things you did,
or what you built,
or what you said.
You won’t even be known
for the love given
or the hearts saved,
because in the end you won’t be known.
You won’t be asked, by a vast creator full of light:
What did you do to be known?
You will be asked: Did you know it,
this place, this journey?
What there is to know can’t be written.
Something between the crispness of air
and the glint in her eye
and the texture of the orange peel.
What you’ll want a thousand years from now is this:
a memory that beats like a heart–
a travel memory, of what it was to walk here,
alive and warm and textured within.
Sweet brightness, aliveness, take-me-now-ness that is life.
You are here to pay attention. That is enough.
-Tara Sophia Mohr
Practicing being enough... oof. Hrrrgh. It's like TRYING to let go. How do you do that? But. Yeah.
If I ever use the word intersection anywhere in my bio though, you're going to have to knee-cap me.
I have always been contemptuous of those that I perceive as obviously working too hard to look like something--anything-- and I'm not really proud of that. I don't own it or anything. It bums me out. Why would I spend an hour of short precious life analyzing the couple across from me that is all Rolexy and SUV-y, and little dogg-y'd out wondering (contemptuously) how long they've worked to craft the look of all the right generic things. Why am I worrying about that at all with so many of my own questions? I have contempt for that too.
kum by ya.
(I don't know. Maybe it makes a lot of smoke and I'd have to rub my eyes and choke a little.)
And I also don't believe in it because--and this is generalize-y of me--so many people I know who are so very internet-content are lying about so much, about the happy and about the just be-ing.
Breakfast: Leftover cold chicken from the night before. Or French toast made out of super-crusty baguette, cut on the bias.
For me the best breakfast is a fried (organic, fresh) egg with sharp cheddar cheese and a thick slice of an August tomato on toast or an English muffin with some faux sausage on the side. Or beans on toast, with a slice of cheese (always cheese). Or if I'm really being decadent, a toasted bagel (or ww toast) with loads of cream cheese and avocado and salt and pepper. Or wait! the breakfast burrito made by my favorite Mexican joint up the street: "fluffy" (their description) scrambled eggs with black beans and soyrizo, made 'super' (sour cream, cheese, guac).
I'm hungry.
to truly smudge is not to be new-agey
From the comments, it is obvious that most SSK readers (and the SSK, Herself):
1) are eating/cooking *way* more exotic and yummy breakfast fare than I,
2) are at ease in the chef-ly arena (as I never shall be),
3) include noble souls who understand that real butter is the only real option.
I like reading about it.
More about truth. Where to find it? How? How to know when you do, or if it's another rabbit trail? Why does the question stick around even though it can be really irritating and frustrating? You certainly run across plenty of people who make you go, "Hmm. Well, if THAT'S it, I definitely don't want any."
And then, there are the people who make you go, "Whatever they've got, I think I might want some."
You could write about this stuff for about a hundred years without my getting bored. I don't take you as insulting, or even (not really) cynical. Seems like you want the real thing to be the real thing. Like the butter.
Cathy in Missouri
Read all the comments and love the mix of food and truth and identity. I'm so appreciative of everyone here. Thank you. xo
1) Toasted Montreal bagel with real deli cream cheese, slivers of red onion and ripe tomato, and truffle salt.
2) My friend Peter's cheese and bacon waffles, served with maple syrup and a huge hot latte in just the right mug.
3) DIM SUM at a rackety busy restaurant. With old friends to make it transcendent. Impossible longing on both counts in Amman.
4) Arabic breakfast with, at a minimum: hummus, thick yogurt, pita, cucumbers, olives, honey, jam, zaatar (flat bread baked with olive oil, thyme and sesame), salty cheese, nescafe, eggs, maqdous (pickled baby eggplants stuffed with walnuts), tomatoes, sweet tea. Takes some of the sting out of #3 above.
This is comforting on a number of levels. First, the Raisin Bran. Human and attainable. I could actually pour my own bowl in Missouri.
The rest...ahhhh....comforting because it is enticingly delectable and yum, yum, yum, yummy, yum, yum. Felt like a trot around the globe just reading. Some transcendence, even a little, for a Tuesday.
Still sighing over #1, 2, 3, 4.
Cathy in Missouri
Breakfast - bringing world peace and understanding one pancake at a time.
But why can't I bear it? These people are just doing their thing. Your post has really made me think.
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs every other day and "daddy toast" (toast made from my husband's whole wheat homemade bread) with butter. Oj, and a handful of walnuts. Sometimes Greek yogurt and finished off with a couple squares of dark chocolate. If I'm feeling ambitious, I break out the waffle iron and make fruit salad.