Question for Robin & Meredith: What do you guys have for breakfast? The cookbooks don’t mention anything and I’m curious. ~Maire Martello (on Facebook)
Good excuse to re-post this:
“To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.” ~W. Somerset Maugham
“All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.” ~John Gunther
“Oysters are the usual opening to a winter breakfast. Indeed, they are almost indispensable.”
~Grimod de la Reyniere (1758-1838)
“Life, within doors, has few pleasanter prospects than a neatly arranged and well-provisioned breakfast table.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
“Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.” ~Oscar Wilde
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” I’m sure my mother said that a few times!
Breakfast before I set off on my walk this morning was the same as every morning (and no sign of an oyster)!
large organic oat flakes mixed with
freshly cracked walnuts–watch out for rogue pieces of shell that crack your teeth.
a dried untreated apricot–chopped
a teaspoon of linseeds
a prune,
half a pot of low fat organic yogurt
cinnamon–sprinkled on top
and moistened with oat/almond milk–unsweetened.
Two slices of 100% rye bread with a little butter and pear & apple fruit spread (no added sugar)
The same every morning? Yes!
Dull?
Not for me–I look forward to it–once a day at least!
Maybe we are at our most conservative, most in need of ritual just after waking up, but I find the assembling and eating of this bowl of goodies a daily delight.
Meredith’s version of breakfast heaven:
Porridge (cooked oats–large and small flakes), milk, “no fat” organic yogurt, a prune, seasonal fruit, cinnamon sprinkled over.
Robin Ellis 
Breakfast for me, prepared by my husband, steel cut oats, a quarter cup muesli, chia seeds, flax seeds, blueberries, raspberries, some almond milk – occasionally a dab of honey. Along with a cuppa.
I sent my daughter a copy of your latest, and she was thrilled. She was in the neighborhood when you were in LA, but she learned about it too late to come by to purchase a copy herself.
Lovely photo! Sadly, I’ve never been able to eat breakfast; at least not until 11am and by that time we’re all onto lunch. Thank you so much for answering my question!
Absolutely agree! Here in Italy we use to say: “Colazione da re, pranzo da principe, cena da povero”. Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a poor…
We use every morning ate a breakfast like your. Black coffee, milk, a slice of black bread with butter or marmellate, prunes, yougurt, pistacchi or noci or peanuts. Orange judge at the end. That’s perfect a good humor too. Enjoy!! Wishing a great week end…
love,
Bea.
I usually love your recipes, but I have to be honest, I couldn’t face any of these items any time of the day! Well done Robin and Meredith!
Dear Robin,
Stayed too late at school to make your lentil soup last night (so it’s on our weekend menu), but we did watch this interesting little mystery/drama I recently found on EBay-UK. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? “A Dark Adapted Eye” 🙂
After the first half finished, I said, “Oh, les petites misères!” (That’s my Dad’s favorite line if I ever complain about life’s problems.) I commented to Gene that if you looked up the word “dysfunctional” in the dictionary, you’d probably find a picture of this fictional family! But we didn’t quite realize how the baby played out in the story, yet…
By the second half, I thought I knew who the father was (I was wrong), and I thought I knew why Vera wanted to keep him with her (besides her obvious maternal love, also to protect him from a sister who might retaliate for all her years of pompous domination!) I even felt kinda sorry for her and vaguely understood her motives. I kept hoping her niece & brother John would step in and do something, but they never did! But neither one of us EVER expected the “zinger” that we discover in the last few minutes of the story!! By the time the screen faded to black, all I could say was, “WOW!!” I think we stayed awake half the night discussing the plot! Well done!!!
If you don’t mind, could you tell us a bit about the movie and how it came about? Had you read the book before you took the part? (Oh, and we were tickled to see a young Honeysuckle Weeks as Faith; we liked her in “Foyle’s War.”)
Cheers & hugs,
Dianne & Gene
Well to be honest, Dianne, the piece is foggy in my mind.
I remember the shock of realizing I was playing Helena Bonham Carter’s Dad! OMG!
I was in and out of the filming–a little detached in other words.
Can’t remember if I read the book, in fact I don’t remember much about it–no help I’m afraid.
Honeysuckle Weeks was a young girl and already it was clear she had a quality.
I’m reading another Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell)–A Fatal Inversion–at the moment strangely.
That’s funny about Helena Bonham Carter! Guess I’m not so familiar with her. I knew I recognized her from somewhere, then looked her up and saw she played the crazy witchy girl in “Harry Potter.”
If you want to revisit the story, there’s a triple-feature Barbara Vine DVD out there (UK) that has both “Dark Adapted Eye” and “Fatal Inversion”…I almost bought it ‘cuz the other stories sounded intriguing, too! I was just so blown away by the ending of this one!
I had to laugh about your topic this morning and having a “leisurely breakfast.” It sure didn’t look like that was a leisurely breakfast you ate in the opening scene, haha! Creative camera angles, too. I was afraid you might give yourself indigestion! 😉
Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Cheers & hugs!!
I’ve just found the NYTimes review of “King Lear” via your blog. It sounds great. I expect there was a fraternal Edgar-Edmund reunion too.
PS. What about caffeine in the mornings? Own up! I enjoy a strong cup of tea an hour before breakfast. I have tried off and on to change the habits of a lifetime, but now just enjoy the pleasure, even though in my experience it detracts slightly from breakfast itself.
Yes, coffee–small cup, black with the toast. Small because that is all i seem to want.
Hi Robin: I am enjoying the recipes in your new cookbook. Did not expect the peas and cabbage to be so tasty! About your breakfast bread: Do you bake it or buy it or have I already missed the recipe in one of your posts or books?
Hi Betsy–good to hear from you.
I am lucky. We have an organic baker nearby from whom I get 100% rye bread. It is hard to find the equivalent in the States–certainly that’s my experience these last few weeks. What i call “heavy” bread doesn’t seem to exist–even at places like Wholefoods.
The answer would be to try making it. I don’t have to and so don’t try. I aim to one of these days!
Don’t forget to grind the flax! Human body pretty useless at breaking through the linseed coat and getting at the nutrients.
Oddly enough, Whole Foods doesn’t always have the best bread – I’m sure you know we call it Whole Paycheck. I noticed Eataly certainly had a fair share of delicious-looking bread. We opted for a whole wheat baguette that day and it was pretty good. We stopped in Trader Joe’s as well but it was so insane we never made it to the bakery section. Next time you’re in NYC, you might want to buy one of those great “Shopping in NYC” guides that proliferate at Barnes & Noble. They’ll help you out in the organic dept. When we lost our ethnic bakers to the suburbs and “white collar” jobs we lost all of our wonderful bakeries. Except Orwasher’s on the Upper East Side which makes a lovely White Mountain Loaf as we Irish/German immigrants used to call it. Now it’s all cupcake stores.
That explains a lot.
An opening for an enterprising young baker?