BREAKFAST

This is part one of a series of posts about food. Don't ask me why. I just think I have stuff to  say.

So when you read or hear about eating healthy and living well and stuff you will inevitably hear about the importance of breakfast. The most important meal of the day, energy for the day, skipping breakfast will kill you, all that. Now, I'm not a nutritionist or any sort of authority on this topic, but like everyone on the Internet, I have opinions.

I didn't have breakfast today. I returned from a vacation at two o'clock in the morning and slept until eleven. Because I wasn't hungry then, I waited until two pm and had lunch. And I feel fine. The thing is, no matter how important it is to start the day by filling up with energy, eating when you're not really hungry or even forcing yourself to eat really can't be healthy.

During schooltime I get up pretty early, and I just eat something sweet and probably very bad for me because that early in the day I can't even think about nutritious, healthy food and the shock of being woken up by my alarm clock requires therapy. But because of by now eleven years of school routine I know that I will be hungry again in time for the breaks, and I take proper, healthy food with me as a sort of second breakfast (I could now make a Lord of the Rings joke but I won't because I can't think of a good one). The point is, I know what I need to function on a regular day and I do that. So far, it's working really well for me.

But on irregular days - like on vacation, that routine is not only disrupted, but torn apart and burned. Sometimes you spend the vacation in a cabin or otherwise are responsible for your own food, in which case you can do whatever you want, which for my family usually means that we eat what we always have for breakfast. But, in our case most of the time, it might happen that you go out for food in the morning.

Generally, I like the idea of other people making my food in a way that is much better than I ever could. But with breakfast, that's different and depends a lot on the situation.

Take an American diner. A really nice, old fashioned, good one. I can enjoy pancakes and/or waffles for three days tops. Afterwards I miss my home routine so much I can barely look at a pancake without crying. But that's different for everyone, my father could survive on full American breakfast for eternity.

The worst "going out for breakfast" experience I had was in a coffee house in Vienna, where you could have a "normal" breakfast with cheese and jam and rolls and stuff, but it was so expensive that I felt guilty for eating and at the same time guilty for not eating, which means that I a) by far didn't eat enough to last till lunch and b) really didn't enjoy it.

Generally, ordering specific breakfast dishes doesn't work for me, and a lot of other people, because you are rather limited in choice and combination depending on what the restaurant decided to serve. If you want scrambled eggs but no bacon and a waffle and fresh fruit, ordering can feel more like puzzle work than anything else, and also it can turn out pretty expensive.

My favourite way of breakfast away from home is a buffet where you can just load your plate with whatever you like for a fixed price. I found that the best breakfast buffets can be found in business motels or hotels with conference facilities. Seriously. Warm dishes like eggs, bacon or sausages, different kinds of cheese, fresh fruit, yoghurt drinks or smoothies you don't have to pay extra for, and, my absolute favourite, miniature chocolate croissants. I've also been to a place where you could make your own pancakes.

I like breakfast buffets that much because they give you complete freedom on what to eat and how much. If you order eggs and bacon at a diner you might get too much egg and not enough bacon or the other way round or it might be too much altogether. At a buffet, you can not only choose the amount but also the combination. If you like bacon on your pancake, you can eat it and nobody will care. (Which doesn't mean that I like bacon on pancakes, but it's a good example.)

So, that's my (very chaotic) thoughts. There's not really a moral to this. Except for maybe eat what you want but that's my usual approach to food if you had to put it into one senctence. But, kids, that's a different story.

Until next time!

Love,
Jojo