only dull people are brilliant at breakfast
oscar wilde
if i'm really honest about this, i've been putting off writing my first entry here for a little while now. it's not that i don't want to: far from it. it's just, i've had a lot of scattered ideas - but haven't really known where to begin. i wanted that first entry to be p-e-r-f-e-c-t. so, i put it off and put it off, hoping for a flash of inspiration that so far hasn't materialised.
so, this morning, when i stole a quiet half-hour on my sofa before work, tea in one hand and a warm bowl of porridge in the other, i decided it was time to just get on with it.
it is late autumn here in japan and, although it is indeed lovely, it really is getting terribly cold. in the mornings lately I've been waking up sniffly, headachy and grumpy, following a night of restless, broken sleep as the nights get colder than my body is quite ready to put up with.
at the moment, breakfast for me is usually a bowl of quaker oats, cooked with water and a pinch of salt, with a splash of cold milk poured over the top when it comes out of the microwave. porridge is to my mind a miracle breakfast: quick, warm, filling - and unfussy (read: mad easy) enough to put together in the first fuzzy hour or so before my brain has even really registered that i am awake. there is also something appealing about creating a breakfast as satisfying as this out of such a short, even austere list of ingredients: oats, water and salt. perhaps here is where i should admit that it usually comes down to toppings.
this morning on my oats i had milk, a blob of blueberry conserve, a light sprinkle of cinnamon and some crushed-up walnuts. it was the perfect play of textures and flavours and quite delicious. sure, it wasn't a masterpiece or a dazzling work of brilliance - but i don't mind calling it a small, quiet achievement that made one icy morning just a little bit warmer and a little bit more delicious.
the wait for inspiration is so often a counter-productive one, for me at least. starting this blog is, in part, an attempt to capture what it means to appreciate the small, good things in life. simple, little things. like my morning bowl of porridge.
