Andy HoffmanMost breakfasts we eat at home. I know the blog makes it seem that we have three or four breakfasts a day, all at fabulous, or sometimes just interesting, restaurants sprinkled around the globe. Despite the occasional fabulously-interesting place we tell you about, most mornings I stumble into the kitchen for a bowl of granola and some fruit. Maybe a couple times a week either Deb or I will whip up something a trifle more elaborate, like a frittata or waffles. But these breakfasts occupy the heart of our love story.
Early in our relationship, Deb claimed the privilege of making coffee each morning. I have a favorite way to drink my one cup of coffee each day: I like it before food, sweetened and enriched with cocoa, a mocha treat to greet the morning. It often includes almond milk; cow’s milk doesn’t agree with me any longer. And while I do enjoy making my own coffee, I like it even more that Deb creates a gift for me each morning. When we lived in our own place, our morning ritual coalesced into cuddling, followed by coffee in bed, brought up to me by Deb, with some in-season fruit. In time, fortified by coffee, I made my way to the kitchen.
We do experience those rare days of discord too, and even rarer days of apathy, but we have found that breakfast together repairs those imperfect moments. And all moments, seen objectively, have imperfections. The way we love one another polishes those blemishes. It never removes them entirely, but it does allow us to see the beauty in imperfection. Over breakfast, we talk about our coming day: meetings, ambitions, weather. Over a bowl of granola or a plate of eggs we reaffirm our partnership in facing the day together and with love.
As we have embraced a year of travel, our mornings have accommodated. Sometimes, we can’t find good cocoa for my coffee. Occasionally, as in Vermont where I’m writing this and where our bed has a low slanted ceiling above, the coffee-in-bed works less well. But whether I make fabulous home fries out of a baked potato or Deb tosses together a frittata, we reconnect in ways that sustain us through the day and into the next one. We call this Breakfast: A Love Story not only because we love breakfast, which we do, but because we love one another, and we celebrate that love in different ways each morning with a cup of coffee and sustenance for the day ahead. And whatever we eat, the most important food I have each morning is the light in Deb’s eyes.