Beverage breakfast

Sausage, egg, and cheddar on a roll, add grilled onions, mayo, hot sauce. A ginger turmeric shot, a pineapple coconut water, a Guayaki Yerba Mate Berry Lemonade Flavor (only 20 calories per can!).

I was under the weather yesterday; this was my bodega order.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” is a lie dreamed up by the marketers at Big Cereal a century ago. Lunch is the most important meal of the day (functionally). Dinner is the most important meal of the day (spiritually).

The most important part of breakfast is the beverages. These days, my everyday breakfast is a half-cup of muesli soaked in water at room temperature for half an hour; just enough calories to fuel a productive morning until I get to the more sacred lunch. There was a period of a few months a couple of years ago where I didn’t eat breakfast at all, just coffee, but I had to stop because it hurt.

People are 80% (or so) water; we can go weeks without food, but only a few days without water. Breakfast is about the beverages.

In Lisbon we had espresso and orange juice with breakfast every morning. Water, too, of course, sparkling. There was usually food; half the point of vacation is to eat.

I’ve never had Huel, Soylent, or any other of these liquid meal replacements. And some day I will, for the anthropology of it all, but I think they’re an affront to the beverage-breakfast; they’re neither beverage nor food, pure purgatory.

On Monday morning, I put my muesli together to soak, put on a pot of coffee, and went to the post office to drop off rent. First of the month. Five people milled about outside the locked door, including one USPS employee; 9:20 in the morning and the guy with the keys was late.

I went around the corner to the Italian cafe to sip an espresso and check my emails (the epost office is always open). I went back. Still closed.

80% is, perhaps, not enough. It’s summer, I have a cold, and I wish I were 100% water, so many drops in the ocean, crashing on the shore, giving structure to a sandcastle.