What I miss most on my island is breakfast.
I should probably qualify that statement, since the house
has plenty of breakfast items in store – there are eggs and breads. I have
cornbread and pancake mix. There are Cheerios and oatmeal. No bacon, but then I
seldom eat it. I even have orange juice, an item I would never stock if it were
not for the lock down.
What I miss is the breakfast out. I miss steaming cups of
coffee with never-ending refills. I miss fluffy omelets and even fluffier
pancakes. And waffles. I don’t even like waffles, but I miss them.
It may surprise those not in the medical profession, but
breakfast is the best meal of the day. Not for any nutritional value that it
provides (although I remember how one massive blueberry pancake from the
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital cafeteria could power a whole day of
surgery). Breakfast is the best because it is forbidden or if not forbidden at
least prohibitively rare. The luxury of sitting behind a plate brimming with
butter and maple syrup was so unusual that it became obsessional. It signified
leisure and rest and distance, if only for a few moments, from the frantic race
which occupied our lives.
I have a framed sketch from the New Yorker by Maria Kalman
called The Optimism of Breakfast. It depicts a thick and sugary pastry sitting
demurely on a plate, cutlery at the ready with a hearty mug of coffee standing
guard. The legend reads, “In the Optimism of the Morning, it is Wise to Get
Going. To be Confident, Expansive, Exuberant. If you find yourself at the Cup
and Saucer Coffee Shop – or any coffee shop – with a Jelly Doughnut and a cup
of coffee, staring out the window at the parade of passersby, you could do
worse. A whole lot worse.”
When the madness ends and the doors are flung open, when the
shops ring with happy sales and the restaurants rock with the laughter of hospitality,
when the world reopens to joyful song, on that first morning you will find me there
with the biggest plate of pancakes that anyone could imagine.
I hope you will join me.
No comments:
Post a Comment