Breakfast - beyond cereal and milk

 After a month of watching the USA slipping into reactionary darkness, something lighthearted ... 

Seventy years of cereal and milk ... cereal and milk ... cereal and - well you get the idea. From childhood to retirement, breakfast was nearly always cereal and milk. There were occasional exceptions - usually when travelling and staying in hotels where a "Full English" might be on the menu. But, in the normal course of events, it has been seventy years of cereal and milk.

Cereal and milk is a very practical choice. When you have woken, with just enough time to wash and dress before leaving for school or work, five minutes for cereal and milk is the ideal answer. Even the Egg Marketing Board's encouragement to "go to work on an egg" didn't dissuade. Not that cereal and milk will get you to lunchtime, but it might do until morning tea.

Retirement changes everything. When I retired at 73, one of the first things to change was my morning routine and especially, breakfast. I'm not lazy; I still get up around 6:30 am to make a large mug of tea (for me) and coffee (for Annette). We drink these while reading the day's news (phone, not newspaper) and doing Wordle. At 7:30 I feed the dog and head for the shower. By 8:30, I am dressed and in the kitchen ready to cook breakfast. By and large, this has been the routine for the last three-and-a-half years.

I realised the other morning, as I was standing at the stove, that this was probably my favourite retirement activity. Many other activities bring me pleasure, but breakfast happens Every Single Day. I look forward to feeling the knife cut the first mouthful, as my tastebuds jiggle with anticipation. They know what's coming because I cook the same breakfast every single day too - if it's not broke, don't fix it.

Before the fold.

Breakfast recipe: Two well-beaten eggs in a frying pan; five minutes. Then a slice of homemade bread is cut in two and placed in the egg. Sides folded in and the whole thing flipped. Tomato sliced and arranged on one piece of the bread; mushrooms sliced and arranged on the other. Hold the mushrooms in place with a cheese slice and fold the whole thing into a sandwich. Fry each side for five minutes. Eat.

Having the same breakfast every day may sound rather boring to some; to me, it provides a foundation of certainty from which to tackle the uncertainties of elder-life. If you like, a slice of heaven in the here and now. You might want to give it a try.