Is this you? Breakfast

I don’t mind if I’m told something for my own good. If it truly is for my own good and not for the good of the person telling me the something. I think I have achieved an age if I don’t want to eat something, I shouldn’t have to. Like liver or Brussels sprouts or breakfast. Yes, yes I know all the foodies say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But I grew up in a house where the mother didn’t make pancakes and eggs and juice and toast. I grew up where you threw on clothes and went off to school. Seems I made out all right. I achieved adulthood, (well most of the time I’m adult-like) and am still going strong even though the Trix bunny didn’t feed me each morning. And Cap’n Crunch and the Sugar Pop Bear still are on the grocery store shelf without me gobbling down a bowl full each morning while growing up. But I would, if I could just get over the guilt of eating that much sugar each morning!

This breakfast thing is a mild point of contention in our house. My husband grew up on a farm with a mom and grandmother who cooked as though their lives depended on that meal being on the table hot and ready when the men folk came in from the field. Big hearty breakfasts with farm fresh eggs and hot-out-of-the-oven just baked biscuits smothered with country gravy. Then at noon a huge lunch which on the farm is called dinner — which to me is at 5 p.m. — then supper after dark, which I still call dinner. Confusing? Yes. But that’s another story.

Today is all about breakfast. Don’t get me wrong. I really like breakfast. I like to make a big breakfast, usually on the weekends. And I’m one of those who like to have breakfast for dinner occasionally — or is it supper? I don’t relish the cleanup after making breakfast. It takes at least two pans that get pretty greasy. Making hash browns is not the easiest or fastest thing to make at home for breakfast. Then there are the extra plates for the toast and fruit if you so choose, and if you make something with syrup, things get sticky. Yes, breakfast is a meal much more enjoyable to have served to me at a little out of the way diner. Where you can walk away from all the dishes and glasses used. Now you know one of my dreams!

I really like to go out for breakfast, especially when we’re traveling. A big ol’ Denver omelet or French toast with bacon. Yes, bacon. Everything is better with bacon! I have said, if I were queen we would go out for breakfast every morning and I would have eggs and all the other goodies and a big bottomless glass of orange juice loaded with pulp, over ice so it’s really cold. I would rotate my choices and have all the breakfast stuff I don’t like to make in the mornings. I have brought this up at our breakfast table before. Usually we have this discussion while I’m having my one cup of vanilla caramel instant coffee, and he’s reminding me, indeed, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, all while he’s having the marvelous breakfast I have concocted for him — Corn Flakes he lets soak and become soggy. Again, another story ...

Of course, as in everything, there’s an exception to me skipping breakfast at my house. That is Christmas breakfast. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I live for Christmas breakfast. But it’s up there on my list. We have a little tradition of having a huge breakfast Christmas morning. Bacon and peppered bacon and maple bacon of course, but also Canadian bacon, which is really some type of ham. Oh, and ham, too. The eggs are a secondary thing as is the toast. But we have it every year and usually nothing else that day so you can imagine it’s quite a feast. Leftovers are kept in the oven, just like a Thanksgiving meal.

So I’m not opposed to breakfast. Deep down I probably do believe breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So when a kid asks me about it, I say you need to eat a good breakfast every day. Thus being that woman who believes in doing as she says, not as she does. Yep, being a grown up does have advantages.

Trina Machacek lives in Eureka, Nevada. Her book ITY BITS can be found on Kindle. Share your thoughts with her at itybytrina@yahoo.com.