full of possibility

New favourite thing: get up early on a week day, grab someone special and head to a café for breakfast before work. It has a magical way of making the day feel longer and more full of possibility.

Last Friday Kristian and I braced the early morning cold and headed over to Gather on the Green in Camperdown, which has pretty much the best muffins I've ever had. It's also in the street where I used to live so it has good memories for me. We got there so early that the muffins weren't yet out of the oven so we had a coffee and first breakfast while we waited and then had a roadie blueberry and chocolate muffin as we walked to work.

Here are a few other nice places where I have enjoyed morning breakfast catch ups recently:
- Deus ex Machina in Camperdown
- Palomino Espresso on York Street in the City (also has great muffins)
- Biaggio Café in Pyrmont (they do a breakfast granola that will do you for the whole day).

...

a week of breakfasts

There is something to be said for seeing the passage of time in food. You get glimpses of your own patterns and behaviour, something that has a tendency to slip past in the normal course of the week. Looking through my camera recently was an interesting insight into what I've been preparing for breakfast.

I realised after my last post just how many avocado toasts I've been having for a start and I also noticed a certain proclivity for extravagant weekend breakfasts. Not that this is representative of a typical week in our household. I don't usually make a habit of feasting on cake or pie for breakfast (although when I do it is magnificent). 

The Banoffee Pie was courtesy of our lovely friend Bec, who had made it for a games night we hosted recently. There was some leftover and on Sunday morning, bleary-eyed and a little tired after a late night of games related hilarity I opened the fridge and thought 'Yes, that pie is going to be breakfast.'

...

workaday meals

I realised recently, after reading this wonderful post, that I don't often write about the food I actually prepare for us during the week, especially those regular workaday meals or snacks that come together almost by themselves because I've made them many times before.

I don't know why I have this hesitation because I get just as much inspiration from seeing what people make to nourish themselves when they're busy as from perfectly styled meals that require fancy ingredients and dedicated preparation time.

So here goes, a simple meal that I often make for breakfast or whenever the need for something quick and sustaining arises, or just when I feel like it.

Avocado Toast

1 avocado (makes plenty for two)
some thick crusty bread or toasted bagels
salt and cracked pepper
squeeze of lemon

Spoon out your avocado into a small bowl and mash it up well with a squeeze of the lemon. Toast your bread or bagel (I didn't make the bagels this time around but I have before and if you have a bit of time up your sleeve one weekend I recommend making some - it feels a little bit like a magic trick).  Then lather the avocado onto your bread, season with salt and cracked pepper and eat with gusto. An optional very Australian extra: spread your bread with a little bit of Vegemite before putting on your avocado and then omit further salt.

In NSW the Hass (purple pebbly skin) and Sharwil (greenskin) varieties of avocado are in season for the next few months, so I daresay I'll be having a few more avocado based meals before then. My childhood self is cracking up laughing at this because she knows I used to hate avocados with a passion and now look how far I've come.

For more seasonal produce inspiration make sure you check out the other members of the cooking club below:

Lucent Imagery http://www.lucentimagery.com/
From River’s Edge http://fromriversedge.net/
Down by the Sea http://downbytheseadorset.blogspot.co.uk/
Anything Squirrel Squirrel http://anythingsquirrelsquirrel.com/

...

breakfast habits

I was inspired by this fantastic series to do some posts on breakfast. There's something about breakfast it seems, more so than perhaps any other meal of the day, that reveals something intrinsic about people - about their habits, likes and personalities. It's as if the way we choose to begin our day, when we're still sleepy, unconsciously speaks something of our true selves - whether we're morning people, active and rushed, or quiet and contemplative, creatures of habit or constantly up for change.

Kristian would say that I'm not much of a morning person (except on occasions of community garage sales) but I love mornings... once they're underway. We've been trying for a while now to get up early, around 6am to go for a run and then still have time to hang out at home and luxuriate in the making and eating of breakfast before we head out the door to work.

Usually we make vegemite toast (or sometimes marmalade) and tea.  But lately, now that the weather is cooler, I've been making porridge again, my autumn and winter friend, sometimes with brown sugar, sometimes with sultanas and honey, occasionally with maple syrup if we've got any in the house. But I'm thinking I need to mix it up, maybe add some coconut and walnuts...
As a kid I think I ate Weetbix with sultanas for breakfast every day for about 10 years straight.

A long term lover of coffee, I've recently switched to tea in the morning, with the occasionally coffee later in the day. For a while there I was having two macchiatos before I got to work and it was unsustainable madness. Now I'm having up to 5 cups of tea but with much less crazy.

My favourite breakfast ever was when I travelled in Italy as a teenager and would go to Cafe Tonnollo in Venice every morning to have a cappuccino and a brioche con marmellata (croissant with jam).

A recent discovery, whilst breakfasting with a lovely new friend, was granola with yogurt at Cafe Biaggio in Pyrmont.  Crunchy and nutty and thoroughly delicious.

How about you folks, do you have any favourite breakfast routines, rituals or preferences?
I'd love to know.


P.S. Yes, that is a big hunk of cheddar cheese. I inherited from my grandmother a predilection for teaming it with marmalade toast - not everyone's cup of tea, but certainly a favourite of mine.
...

easterings

A smattering of moments from a wonderfully long Easter break. Don't let the photographs fool you - a

lot more hot cross buns were consumed that it would appear, along with twenty or so cups of tea, fresh figs, banana cake, quesadillas, tuna mornay, potatoes, potatoes, potatoes and soup. I got up ridiculously early almost every day and read books in our garden with cups of coffee, whilst I waited for Kristian to awake.

Instead of having chocolate eggs we made brownies instead and watched the most delightfully quirky British show - Dirk Gently, based on the books by Douglas Adams, which I can highly recommend. It is reassuringly awesome in the manner of most English crime comedy/dramas. 

Hope you had a lovely break and here's to another short week!

... 

a few breakfasts lately

A few breakfasts enjoyed at our place recently. Normally, I'm a vegemite toast and tea person but on the weekends we have been splashing out a little in the breakfast department.

Sunday was the first time in about a month that we've had a day at home together - we celebrated with huge baguette french toast, bacon and maple syrup, with coffees from Norton street. Heaven.

...

morning walk

Inspired by Handmade Romance's fabulous sign spotting, I recorded a few wonderful things I spied on my morning walk to work. Most exciting of which I think may have been a fantastic little cafe discovery in Cafe Hernandez. It's tiny, filled with paintings and has a piano in the corner. Oh and it sells coffee and delicious things featuring chorizo.  Need I say more...

...