It’s not even lunchtime, and already I have made a series of fascinating discoveries:
1. There is a way to shut the front door to our flat quietly, rather than slamming it shut.
My little sister explained this to me blearily this morning as I popped out at 6.30am. ‘You need to put your key in the lock as you close the door,’ She grumbled at me indistinctly. ‘Oh,’ I replied, pleasantly surprised. ‘But why have you never told me this before?’ My little sister stared at me. ‘This is the first time, in possibly our entire existence, and certainly during the time of us living in this flat, that you have woken up before me.’ I frowned disbelievingly at my sister.
‘Luckily,’ She continued, ‘This time, when you woke up an hour before me, you woke me up too.’ ‘I do like tradition,’ I replied cheerily, leaving the flat.
2. The perfect winter breakfast. It’s not porridge, or oats, or the furmity slop the Mayor of Casterbridge feeds his wife before he sells her in Thomas Hardy’s novel.
No, this is a food item that has the self-respect to hold its own shape, rather than lazily flounder into whatever shaped vessel it is poured into. It’s potato cakes.
Potato cakes are, quite simply, the best winter breakfast available. They are delicious. They are filling. They can be eaten hot or cold- and unlike their carbohydratey-neighbour, the crumpet, taste good either way. They can be eaten with a topping or without. They can be popped into the toaster 2 minutes before you leave and function as edible hand-warmers. They are sold everywhere; I personally am eating the Warburtons potato cakes, but that’s because they were reduced from 79p to 36p in Tescos. Oh yes- they are also cheap. They are filling, happy-making and cheap. They are the Soma of the breakfast world.
unfashionablylost 