Well hello there, we have apparently reached the time of year when I have small freak-out about breakfast. Join me, won’t you?
The issue, in a nutshell, is that I continue to need quick weekday breakfast options for my child. Ideally, they would be portable and at least semi-nutritious. This is Quite Challenging, because a lot of breakfast foods do not appeal to my kid. I am and have always been a Very Picky Eater, so I get it; it’s not always a matter of “just eat it because it’s good for you.” Sometimes the preferable option to a food you don’t like is simply not eating. As a Very Picky Eater, I understand. As a Tends-Toward-Fretful Mother, I want my child to fuel her body before school.
The bacon and egg sandwiches I mentioned here are fine, but they are not an everyday desire. The French toast muffins I mentioned in the same post were fine, but I think Carla got sick of them. However, muffins do seem to be a well-received mechanism for delivering calories and (modest) nourishment to my child, so I think I’m going to make some apple cinnamon muffins and some pumpkin cream cheese muffins in the hopes that they do the trick.
Speaking of calories and nourishment, I haven’t done a great job of planning meals this year. I am, however, less great at winging it. So let’s get back to meal planning, at least for today.
Dinners for the Week of March 2-8
Slow Cooker Korean BBQ Chicken: I am in need of some slow cooker meals this week, and this sounds yummy. I’m using breasts instead of drumsticks, and I’ll shred the chicken and use it to make some rice bowls.
Lemony Garlic Butter Shrimp Orzo: My husband and daughter got me a new cookbook for my birthday, and I love it. It has many, many recipes I would love to make and eat, including this one. My husband doesn’t normally care that much for shrimp, but he said he’d be happy to try any recipe from the book and I’m taking him at his word.
Ramen: My daughter is into ramen lately, and I like ramen well enough. My favorite way to make it is with shrimp and edamame, but my husband would prefer chicken. Hopefully we’ll have leftover Korean BBQ chicken he can add to it.
Chicken Paprikas: This meal doesn’t necessarily scream “spring is on the way,” but it’s tasty, simple to make, and usually produces enough leftovers for another meal.
Boring But Hopeful Health Updates. I am going to say this very quietly, lest I jinx it: but I think that I can eat yogurt again? I have been avoiding dairy since May (which is not the same as giving it up; I still put half and half in my tea, I eat occasional sour cream and occasionally throw a dollop of yogurt onto stir fries and have had the occasional scoop of ice cream) after my acupuncturist suggested it might be negatively impacting my skin. My dermatologist was receptive to this idea and thought, based on some semi-related studies he’d read, that it could be exacerbating my rosacea. Based on some very non-scientific experimentation, it SEEMED true. There was a week when I ate white bean enchilada soup every day for lunch and my skin freaked out, for instance. And there is milk and yogurt in that soup (it is a fantastic soup), so I blamed the dairy. When I avoid dairy, I am mostly okay. I do also have to use a special face wash, though, so maybe that’s what’s keeping the bulk of the rosacea at bay. My family and I went on a weekend getaway recently and I decided to throw caution to the wind and eat some yogurt for breakfast every day. Nothing happened, skin wise. So when we got home from our mini-vacay, I continued to buy and eat yogurt. I have been doing it for several weeks now and things seem stable??? I am so hopeful about this, because I LOVE yogurt. It is delicious but it is also such a fantastic source of protein, especially since I dislike eggs.
My usual breakfast of late: SmartLite bread with almond butter and honey, yogurt, and tea.
Now I am whispering so softly my voice is but a rustle: my plantar fasciitis seems like it is under control??? I don’t know what happened or when, but my feet just feel… better??? I am continuing to wear shoes in the house and I do calf stretches every night before bed but… I haven’t been to the acupuncturist in two months and I don’t feel like I need to make another appointment.
Puzzling Gynecological Visit. While we’re on the topic of health, why not discuss my recent visit to the gyn? I did promise Ally some speculum content, but I am immediately going to break that promise because there was no speculum involved. This wasn’t the puzzling part; current gynecological guidelines recommend that most people with a uterus have a pap test every 3 years as part of a screening for cervical cancer, and I’m not due for a pap until next year. However, I was there for my yearly reproductive parts exam. In years past, this has included a pelvic exam, a breast exam, and a discussion of my health concerns. This year, the nurse got me situated in a room and asked if I would be okay having a resident take part in the exam.
The resident was lovely. Great bedside manner, seemed very knowledgeable about my questions (which were specific to breast cancer and perimenopause). She asked if I needed any prescriptions renewed (yes) and whether I wanted her to order a mammogram for me (yes). But then she finished the talking portion of the visit and said that the exam was optional. What????? OPTIONAL? I didn’t know what to do with that information! Listen, I think we’d be hard pressed to find anyone who ENJOYS a pelvic or breast exam. They are invasive and embarrassing and uncomfortable. But… the exam is the purpose of the annual gynecological well visit! If I just wanted a refill of birth control pills, I could simply call that in! I came to the office specifically so that the doctor could poke and prod my bits and tell me if anything was wrong!
What I should have said was, “Of course I want an exam, that’s why I’m here.” But I got flustered when the resident gave me the option. Part of me, I think, was a little embarrassed to ask that she examine me. Which is dumb, because that is her job, and, again, WHY I WAS THERE, but I still felt like it was weird to request it, if it was optional. So I said, “Well, what do you recommend?” And instead of saying, “I recommend you get your reproductive parts examined” she said, “It’s up to you.” WHAT?! That is not a recommendation. We hemmed and hawed a little bit, and finally I said something like, “Well, I came here prepared for a physical exam, so I might as well do it.” But the whole thing was weird and awkward.
And also: WHAT THE HELL? A) Why is the physical exam suddenly optional? And B) What is the point of the annual gynecological exam if there is no exam? The whole experience was baffling.
Speaking of Perimenopause. A ridiculous spate of hot flashes has had me in a bit of a fret about whether I am beginning perimenopause. Doesn’t seem likely, considering my family history, but who really knows, right? There is a fine line between The Normal Joys of Having a Female Reproductive System and going through The Change. The gynecological resident reassured me, if a little dismissively, that I am too young for perimenopause and then moving along to other topics. Maybe so (although I am 42, so it’s not wildly out of the realm of possibility), but it’s something I want to prepare myself for, so I’m thinking about it now. I am listening to Hot and Bothered: What No One Tells You About Menopause (and How to Feel Like Yourself Again)by Jancee Dunn so it’s top of mind. The book is engagingly written – I like Dunn’s energetic voice and humorous/informative writing style. It seems like she did her research, and there are tons of practical tips for how to address various symptoms of menopause. But the book makes me so uncomfortable! In some cases, the physical discomfort is so severe that I find myself squirming in my car. Dunn is careful to interject, not infrequently, that not every person will experience every symptom, that a lot of people go through menopause with nary a hot flash. But this book covers the whole spectrum of menopause issues, so the whole thing feels REALLY OMINOUS. Yikes.
Nature Is Healing. This is probably something I should say very quietly, as well, lest I scare it away, but it seems like sriracha is gradually making its way back into the world. Sriracha – specifically Huy Fong sriracha – is my favorite of all condiments. It would be one of my desert island foods, for SURE. I love it so very much. So I have been keeping an eye out for it in the years since its production has dwindled and have built myself a little stockpile. (There was a moment when I got down to one bottle and tried a bunch of alternatives to see if there was something else I could live with. No, there isn’t. So I have gradually replenished my stores.) I’ve almost always been able to get it on Amazon, although there were a few months this past spring when it was unavailable except for ridiculous prices. (Will I pay $17 per 14-ounce bottle? Yes, it turns out, I will, but that’s pretty much my limit.) But then I noticed it was readily available in Asian grocery stores. I made myself a deal that if I saw sriracha on the shelves, I would buy one bottle. That didn’t seem excessive. When I saw sriracha at Wegman’s recently, I bought a bottle. THEN I saw it at Target and bought another bottle. But this week, even my local grocery store had a small supply of sriracha! I did not buy a bottle; hopefully that won’t prove to be a mistake. Anyway. I am really cautiously optimistic about sriracha being BACK because I love it so much.
I may have a wee bit of an addiction.
Wedding Gift Ideas? My hair stylist just got engaged. We have talked about her wedding for almost the entirety of my past two hair appointments. To be clear, I LOVE talking about weddings and wedding planning and enjoyed this line of conversation THOROUGHLY. Am I hoping that she has a baby immediately after she gets married, so we can talk about pregnancy and then babies and then parenting?! YES, with all my heart. She’s always a delight to talk to, but I much prefer this stuff to the usual “what are you doing this weekend, what kind of travel is coming up this year, what are you watching” kind of chitchat, which is pleasant but requires a lot of effort and doesn’t fuel my soul like wedding and baby talk.
I have distracted myself. She is getting married and I want to buy her a wedding present. However. While I have a very well-developed generous impulse, I have a more well-developed gift giving anxiety that makes the whole thing gift giving process more complicated than it should be. I have several months to fret over and prepare for and acquire this gift but it would be really nice if I had A Real Idea instead of considering and discarding ideas for months and never buying anything and throwing some cash at her at the last minute. Maybe cash is the best gift! But a) I get the strong impression that her fiancé is loaded so she wants for nothing and b) she has been my hair stylist for several years now and I like her immensely and I would love to get her something more personal. Do I… ask her if she’s registered somewhere? I kind of think no, considering she and her spouse-to-be are established adults and live in a fully stocked house… but maybe? She likes alcohol, music (although her taste in music is very specific), travel, cats, Christmas, football. Maybe I could get her something she could take on her honeymoon? (Which will be to a tropical island type place.) But what would that be? I will see her again at least once before she gets married, so I could presumably ask her pointed questions to dig up additional information.
HALP.
Persistent Grey. After our bout of snow and cold, we have now returned to abnormally warm temperatures and the persistent grey that weighs so heavily on my soul in the winter time. Yuck. For a few days, the grey seemed intent on inserting itself as forcefully into our lives as possible by way of fog. Fog is eerie and beautiful. But I am so ready to say goodbye to January and get on toward spring. February is my favorite month because it goes so quickly and then it’s practically spring and we can look forward to longer days and blooming flowers and BLUE SKIES.
My poor photography skills don’t adequately capture how much it felt like being in an (the) Emily Bronte novel.
Are there people in your life who simply rub you the wrong way? Like, no matter what they do, their actions grate on you? And maybe it’s not so much that their actions grate, but that you are pre-expecting those things to irritate you, so you get advance annoyed? No no no. Let’s not talk about this; it’s steeping me further into agitation, the way scratching a mosquito bite just makes it itchier.
Sometimes I am so sick of being The Wife. Not A Wife; I love my husband and on the whole enjoy being married to him. But sometimes the Wifely Expectations make me so mad! And Wifely Expectations sounds much more salacious than what I’m alluding to. I’m talking about the thing where you wait until everyone else is served to take your own food, and then the food is cold. Or how when every spot on the couch is taken, except for the one in the middle, which is blocked in by the coffee table and four pairs of legs, no one notices and so you sit on the floor because asking everyone to move would require lots of standing up and picking up of plates and shuffling around. Or how you wake up earlier than everyone else to make sure the house is as clean and tidy as possible, even though it will be messy and crumb filled the next morning, and no one notices (although they would be sure to notice if things continued along the messy/crumb-y route). Or how when your mother-in-law (also The Wife) offers to clean up the kitchen, it is to help YOU out, not your husband because it is not his job to clean up the kitchen, it is the job of The Wife. Okay. Deep breaths. Let’s not go further down THIS path.
No Dinners This Week post, because my sister-in-law may or may not be arriving at some point today or tomorrow, and I am unable to commit to a meal that may or may not take her into account. Tonight we are having takeout from an Indian restaurant; we were ALL in the mood for it last night, but neither of the two options we could agree on were open. I still have ingredients for fajitas, short ribs with polenta, and pork with roasted vegetables that I’d planned on last week, so those should hopefully tide us over. Well. That topic is less – but not un- – fraught, but I have nothing more to say about it.
For multiple very boring and make-sense-only-to-me reasons, I have decided to make an effort to eat breakfast more consistently. And I am hoping that you will help me figure out the best breakfasts and the best breakfast times, because I am floundering around.
I will tell you, in advance, that it may seem futile to offer your own suggestions. It may seem like the kind of thing where someone asks for advice and then wrinkles their nose at everything you recommend. But I promise that I want your suggestions and breakfast insights, and that I am willing to TRY, even if the nose-wrinkling feels more natural.
I feel like sort of a breakfast newbie, so I want to collect data and go from there.
Breakfast Foods
For most of my life, I have not only avoided breakfast, but actively disliked it. I remember eating breakfast in elementary/middle school: usually Rice Krispies or a bowl of milk with a single brick of Shredded Wheat in it. Maybe Corn Pops if whomever had done the grocery shopping was feeling wild. Sometimes a toasted Eggo waffle. It was something to be endured, not something to enjoy, and I am very much an Eats for Enjoyment type, rather than the equally valid but mysterious-to-me Eats for Sustenance type.
When I was in high school, and responsible for driving myself, I did not eat breakfast, opting instead to drink a can of vending machine Coke when I got to my first period class. (I can’t imagine that school vending machines carry soda anymore, but mine did. We also had candy machines, and I ate a package of peanut butter M&Ms for lunch almost daily.)
After that, the breakfast timeline gets fuzzy… because I think I just stopped eating breakfast altogether. I am not particularly hungry when I wake up, and I dislike 95% of the options – eggs, oatmeal, and cereal being right up there with the breakfast things I despise the most. Granola bars, breakfast cookies, muffins, protein bars – none of those interest me in the least.
You might think I would be an ideal candidate for intermittent fasting, and I have tried that in the past, but I am not interested in doing it again at the moment (although that might change at some point; who knows).
During my brief flirtations with keto, I ate a hot dog every single morning, and it tasted both incredibly delicious and yet horrifically nauseating at the same time. Kind of how I imagine it would feel to be a vampire: disgusted by what you’re doing, but craving it with every cell of your being.
Sometimes, I will eat Greek yogurt with honey and granola, topped with raspberries or pomegranate seeds. I really only like this as a combination. Sometimes I will make a mango smoothie, but I admit to being a little weary of them lately. Yogurt by itself generally doesn’t do it for me – and it is very difficult to find my preferred yogurt, which is blended raspberry. Must be blended, none of that fruit on the bottom stuff for me no thank you.
On special occasions, I can handle a Big, Traditional Breakfast. You know. A frittata. A breakfast strata. Belgian waffles. Pancakes and bacon. French toast casserole. But those are special occasion breakfasts, not everyday breakfasts – at least, for me.
Once in a great while, I will make myself an omelet or scramble myself an egg. But this is very rare, because eggs typically make me queasy.
I am not ever going to eat a banana.
Today I ate a jar of honey-flavored Oui yogurt, which is delicious and not something I can gear myself up to pay for on a daily basis. ($1.59 per jar! And, yes, the jars are perfect for regenerating scallions on your windowsill, but I already have six of them.) I also had some fresh raspberries, leftover from my daughter’s breakfast this morning. (In addition to the raspberries, I made [“made”] her a chocolate-chocolate-chip muffin, which she used to LOVE and now refuses to eat because I accidentally let her see the package and now she knows it contains vegetables. Why do we teach children to read?)
Carbs are great. I love carbs. I love an English muffin with butter and raspberry jam. I love a toasted bagel with butter and salt. I love toast. But most days they seem too heavy to bother with. And they often seem, somehow, to start the day off on the wrong foot. They sit like a lump in my stomach, for one thing. But I also feel – perhaps imaginarily – that I get hungrier faster when I start out with carbs. Who knows. It could be the result of Big Keto, filling my newsfeed and my brain with the dangers of blood sugar spikes etc. etc. Or it could be a real phenomenon. Or maybe I crave a bagel on days when I am already hungrier and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Everything I read stresses the importance of PROTEIN! in the mornings. But I don’t really like protein, I guess is the issue. I already mentioned my aversion to eggs. I do love a slice of bacon, but microwave bacon is about as appealing as frying up bacon every day (i.e. not appealing). My morning keto hotdog would probably do a lot more harm than good, considering I am no longer doing keto. And I REFUSE to eat peanut butter, all due deference to those who love it.
I am also not opposed to eating lunch for breakfast. Many a time have I warmed up some leftover soup or tacos at nine in the morning. But then what am I supposed to eat for lunch? Problems, problems.
Breakfast Timing
Usually, I wake up, start my tea brewing, unload the dishwasher, and then drink my tea – all between approximately 6:30 and 7:15 in the morning. Straight out of bed, I am almost never hungry. In fact, the idea of food makes me nauseated when I am still trying to wake up. (“Why are you staring at the floor, Mommy?” Carla asks me, as I space out, trying vainly to rejoin the realm of the living.)
But then I like to exercise right after I drop Carla off at school, which means that I am exercising on an empty stomach. (“The #1 Absolute Worst Thing You Can Do For Your Health!” according to several Instagram diet and exercise gurus I click on too often.) If perhaps I should be waking up earlier, then I need to find a different family, one that has fewer night owls.
Also, it is weird to eat breakfast without tea, but I rarely want a second mug of tea so early in the day. Hmmm. A paradox.
I have been experimenting with delaying my tea until after drop off, and drinking it with a little breakfast. This seems to work well: I am hungrier at that time, at least. But it does mean that I feel less inclined to exercise. Well. One thing at a time.
Breakfast… At All?
Okay, who knows. Maybe I am trying to force myself into a pattern that just doesn’t work for me. I acknowledge that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” could very well apply to only a portion of the population, and that I am an outlier. Maybe I really need to embrace my tremendous enthusiasm for lunch, and give up on breakfast all together. Maybe having reached a Breakfast Experimentation phase in my life is an indication that I have too much time on my hands.
But for now at least, the Breakfast Experimentation phase persists. And in my quest for reliable, enjoyable breakfast foods, I am really curious about what YOU eat for breakfast, and any other breakfast-related topics.
