What do you eat for breakfast? Always the same? Difference between week days and weekends? Are you a coffee or tea person? Any favourite mug / cup for coffee or tea?
The second Friday in May and Desiree has chosen the above theme. I am a breakfast convert – I used to just eat a small pot of yoghurt before heading to the office… And there I would have a lait russe (Belgian name for a caffè latte – nobody seems to know why they call it Russian milk) and a pain au chocolat with my colleagues. Not the least healthy, the couques (a Belgian-French word for croissants, pains au chocolat etc) were so greasy that after a year or so I decided to avoid them.
However, not until the beginning of last year did I decide to start eating a proper breakfast at home - porridge (oat meal) for breakfast and I am proud to say that I have continued with this habit. I am probably one of the few people who don’t like milk on my porridge – I have never liked it and maybe that was why I could never eat a whole bowl as a child (my younger brother always had to finish my porridge according to my mother). My porridge is topped off with either a sliced banana or some strawberries (when we have been to Costco), and a small spoon of honey. And I can’t make it in the microwave, it doesn’t taste the same – but O microwaves his porridge with milk and lots of chocolate powder (no comments…).
My breakfast, usually eaten infront of the computer, reading blogs or writing a post on my own blog…
I don’t necessarily drink tea or coffee in the morning but I do drink both coffee and tea so it depends on my mood if I choose to drink something hot. And I don’t like orange juice if it is not freshly squeezed (I prefer apple juice). Here in Puerto Rico my drink of choice is water – I always carry a glass of water with me wherever I am in the apartment.
However, when I drink tea or coffee, I have two favourite mugs – a yellow one that I bought for my first office when I worked as an intern at a human rights NGO in Geneva, and the cow-mug! One of my best friends, Å bought it for me when I was moving to Annecy in France to study French (in 1998 so it is 10 years old!) – her comment was that as she couldn’t find a nice mug, she decided to choose the ugliest! The cows reminded her of our interrailing in the UK (1995) and all the cows we saw in Scotland and Yorkshire. The mug has followed me ever since; to France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and now Puerto Rico – and for once it is [more or less] white on the inside as we have a dish washer :D
My two favourite mugs and my Wal-Mart water bottle that I use for my morning walks – BEFORE breakfast of course. It was a cheap bottle but it’s very handy as it is easy to carry, I also bring it when O and I go shopping on the weekend – cheaper and more environmentally friendly than buying bottled water.
Weekends are brunch time for O and I, we are huge brunch fans and quite often invited friends over for brunch in Brussels. We were usually extremely ambitious and had the table filled with eggs, bacon, chorizo, ham, quiche, smoked salmon, couques, fruit salad - you name it! After a while O decided that we needed to scale down as we always had a lot of leftovers that didn’t fit in the tiny fridge..
The pancakes are a favourite, especially as we got together after O had invited himself over for pancakes at my place 
I make either normal, thin Swedish pancakes (my grandmother’s recipe) or smaller, thicker American-style which we eat sometimes with smoked salmon, Philadelphia cream cheese with chives (I’m not sure I have seen that flavour here in PR) and a slice of lemon. I have a funny memory of O trying to make pancakes once with my gran’s recipe and he asked me why the same ingredient was mentioned twice – I had never before realised that milk and flour are almost the same word in Swedish; mjölk (milk) and mjöl (flour)!
My favourite brunches outside of home must be the huge, luxury brunch buffet in Le Royal Meridien Bristol in Warsaw where my friend P No 1 and I ate and drank everything from Beef Stroganoff to champagne for hours while our Polish host M was working! And the cosy brunch in the spring sun at Morgenland café in Kreuzberg, Berlin during our Master’s programme reunion 2005. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos… 
However, the queen of brunches must be my Dutch friend I – she is not just an expert on making brunches but any kind of cooking! I love going to stay at her cosy place in the Netherlands, and getting treated to lovely dinners and brunches, which I used to do a few times a year when I lived in Belgium. She also once took me to a huge German brunch in Aachen – if you ever go to Germany, try to find a place where they serve Sunday brunch – they are legendary!! O has his favourite brunch place in Hamburg, and he has promised to take me there one day… Who would have thought that the Germans would be so good at preparing brunches??!
A Dutch brunch at my friend I’s place, she hadn’t finished putting everything on the table so it looks a little “empty”… NB. The striped Finnish Ittala mugs and bowls.
My parents are arriving to Puerto Rico tonight for their 2nd visit (they spent 3 weeks here over Xmas and the New Year) and I think that I will treat them to some carrot muffins for breakfast tomorrow (they are really healthy - not very sweet and no butter (just a few tablespoons of oil)).
The reason for this post being so late is that we had several powercuts this morning and my computer refused to start after the 4th or 5th one, as Windows was of course not shut down properly… Arrggh, imagine my frustration, especially as I was about to publish my post – it was all written and ready!! I don’t know if the computer felt that my father is coming but I am so grateful that my parents are arriving in one hour!! You see, my father (and my brother) works for the company that has made my computer so he’s an expert, thank goodness!! If he can’t fix it, O said that maybe it is time to buy a new one and what better time than when we have one of the two family computer geniuses around!
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