By Lisa
In the rush to write all about how I haven’t been cooking, I forgot one very important meal: Breakfast.
It’s not unheard of that the kids, these days, will serve themselves breakfast alone. They do a good job of selecting cereal, bagels, milk, juice, fruit–whatever they can find that strikes their fancy. Sometimes, they actually get fancy and set the breakfast trays up in the living room and have a TV picnic breakfast while we sleep in. There’s generally not too much mess.
But there are times, too, when I’ve set out a special breakfast, and on Thanksgiving, I decided to combine the two (special breakfast + breakfast alone) and pronounce it a new tradition.
I made a fresh batch of apple cider from granny smith apples in our extremely efficient juicer (which I won in a giveway on Foodbuzz. See the sidebar on our blog). It was bright green and crisply tart and delicious at first, when it was freshly squeezed/pressed/frothed, but then it mellowed to that familiar amber color and was still delicious.
I made cornbread (from a really good box mix at Trader Joes, and lest you protest, remember this was the weekend of not cooking), boiled eggs (which both children would both live on if they could) and set out a bowl of pineapple guavas, a small cup of strawberries, and a plate of fuyu persimmons. I set the table, and in the morning, they ate like little hungry pilgrims, and we slept in.
It’s easy enough to do something like this every once in a while. It gives the kids a feeling of autonomy, of being treated specially, of choice. We don’t have to talk about what it gives the grown-ups.