Rise and Shine

Breakfast has certainly become more important as I have grown older. My earliest memories of breakfast involve idli and chutney - true to the origins. As someone who struggles to stumble out of bed before 7AM, I don’t know how my mother woke up, made fresh idlis and chutney for us to eat and pack for lunch. One of my good friends from school used to bring stuffed idlis - the chutney, preferably a mint coconut one, would be inside the idli before steaming it. This invariably involved more time and effort to make, and little me, not realising that my friend was a single child and Amma had two of us mongrels to prepare for school each morning, would beg my mom to make the stuffed version too. And she occasionally did, god bless her soul. School was a whole different time, you would share lunches and chat about our life’s happenings. I had friends from different cultures so idlis were swapped for theplas, were swapped for French toasts, for uniyappams, for fried rice. Sometimes supply and demand wouldn’t match and interventions were held, important social skills were learnt regardless. 

Then came college, and breakfast was usually a run between the morning classes to the cafeteria to get whatever you can within 10 minutes. This could be toast, or paniyarams, or upma - things more natural to Bangalore. Of course, masala dosa is more natural but more time consuming to prepare or relish. Sometimes I would bring bread and Nutella from my dorm to “save costs” from the monthly pocket money I was given from home. Never mind that I spend this entire monthly college budget on one week’s worth of cab rides to work nowadays (because I am still a sleepy child who is always running late), possibly carrying a bread and Nutella to boot.  After college comes work in Hyderabad, for a role that was service-oriented for US clients, meaning my day started closer to noon. I had to be in office by 11:30 AM, which I still got a bit late for (unsurprisingly), and the office had a full service cafeteria that offered meals four times a day. Delicious meals with different cuisines - Burmese khowsuey, chaat counters, fresh cut fruits. I had options of pesarattu, eggs made-to-order, toast, cereal, oatmeal - pretty much your basic hotel buffet. Actually, waking up to a hotel breakfast buffet is one of my favourite things to do. One time I had breakfast at the Hyderabad Ikea, which was the first Ikea in India at the time. I still remember the cinnamon roll shared with a couple of friends from college that were visiting. 

Then came COVID, lockdown, back home.  Now I was in my early twenties and Amma was tired of cooking, so sometimes she would ask me to cook. I would try recipes from Ranveer Brar and Home Cooking Show, and she would eagerly wait for the authentic Bombay toast and aamras puri. Before I knew it, I moved to Ahmedabad for almost two years of campus and Gujarati food. While the mess breakfast was pretty decent, including parathas, dhoklas and unfailingly good chai everyday, we also tried local khaman, theplas, and my favourite - jalebi fafda. No points for guessing I gained about 10 kilos in my time there. I didn’t realise it either, I was having too much fun building friendships, networks, experiences, memories; and developing a sense of identity while living the dream that had shaped my identity for many years until that point. 

In between, I spent summer vacations near Mangalore. Now there, we had phou (a type of poha), surnali, shevayi (which required twisting the rice dough by hand on a machine all the kids fought to operate), fresh puranpoli, hittu (a type of idli steamed in leaves). These dishes are so specific to Konkani cuisine I cannot find them anywhere outside the region- the only way to eat it is to make it! Which I don’t, now that I am in Singapore. In my first year as an analyst, when I was expected to be in work by 7:30 AM, breakfast was local kopi, with biscuits if I had time. Then, I began making overnight oats, which went through variations until I perfected my current recipe, which I mostly borrowed from a Singaporean YouTuber - oats, granola, chia seeds, blueberries, vanilla yogurt, honey and chocolate oat milk. Tastes like a dessert, has a lot of good stuff in it. I also absolutely love the local breakfast of kaya toast, sometimes as a killer combo with kopi and soft boiled eggs. As I write this, I already know this will be my breakfast tomorrow. 

It has been a work heavy month. I took the morning off today as my body couldn’t function after working almost 60 hours before Friday, and when I finally walked in to work and went to my usual coffee place, the barista tells me “you look like you had a long day”. Girl, my day had just started! I am not complaining though, it’s the work that really tickles my brain before almost frying it. It’s the work that gets me to Hong Kong next month, to have breakfasts of pineapple buns and sourdough egg tarts. My father used to say some of us eat to live, and some of us live to eat. I can proudly say I am in the latter, especially because I appreciate how much effort and thought it takes to have fresh food on the table everyday. I say, while eating .. “overnight” oats.