A Big Breakfast

My family tends to categorize, bucket and label. We do it to others, but we mostly do it to ourselves. We each have been labeled over the years with an exhaustive list of qualifiers that has helped shape our personal brands (whether we want them to or not.) And given the fact that 60% of the family are lawyers, the label sticks until proven not guilty. We may want to deny our tags or make a case against them, but in the end, the judge overturns our pleas, and we are forever pinned.

Even though we, as a very type A family, are very similar our labels tend to make an argument for our contrasting nature - how different each of us are.

One of us was never much of a reader.
One of us is a bookworm.
One of us just reads the Sports Section.
One of us should be the default choice when taking a child shopping.
One of us should be the default choice when taking a child to a lecture.
One of us should be the default choice when taking a child to a sporting event.
(If there's a musical or flower show involved, all the kids are going.)
One of us gets crabby when she's tired.
One of us gets crabby when he's hungry.
One of us gets crabby (and emotional) just because.
One of us is a night owl.
One of us has to go to bed at 9 PM every night.
And one of us likes to sleep in late on the weekends and have big breakfasts.

The labels I've been pinned with are just about 100% true, especially the one about turning into a pumpkin at 9 o'clock every night. It was actually very difficult convincing my Dad that I would stay up until midnight to hear the last song at our wedding. The brand that has been placed on me is the result of (very) repetitive behaviors that I've come to find comfort in, and I'm okay with it.

Several of my sister's labels though aren't so much the sum of many occurrences, rather they are the unfortunate circumstance of my Mom calling her house around 7 AM on a Saturday when she was still sleeping, and my Mom calling her house when she was about to sit down to pancakes, eggs and bacon on a Sunday morning. From that moment on, my sister was known for "sleeping in late and eating big big breakfasts."

While this relaxing behavior is very typical in most households, it is actually an aberration in my go-getter, fiber-eating family, and is positioned as a negative - like there is something being missed by pushing the snooze button a little longer on a Saturday and enjoying something other than Bran Flakes in the morning.

While I'm in the rise and shine and eat a granola bar camp, all I could think about this week, was sleeping in and having a big breakfast. I'm still sick and every morning, all I want to do is stay in bed, get out of it when I feel like it, and mosey straight over to a dining room table dressed with waffles, and syrup, and smoked salmon, and quiche, and bacon, and mimosas.

My desire for a sleep-in big breakfast only compounded when I saw the Irish bacon from our butchering class thawing out in the fridge on Monday. And then my Saveur Newsletter highlighting Shopsin's pumpkin pancakes on Tuesday morning. And then the dozen eggs started calling out, "use us, use us!" on Tuesday night. So I said, fine, I was going to do it.
Peter, we're having breakfast for dinner.

Now ... talk about labels. This was an occasional go-to meal solution for my Dad. And as kids, we loved it. My mom on the other hand, was not a fan. In fact, I can recall several times when she would call to say that she was going to leave the office in five minutes and then ask what was for dinner.
Breakfast. 
Oh ... I think I'm going to work late tonight.
Mom hates breakfast for dinner!

But it was an option that Peter and I hadn't tried yet. So ... we cut and sizzled the bacon, made the pumpkin pancakes from the newsletter, and made my new favorite side dish, David Lebovitz' spinach cake, which is like a spinach souffle / crustless quiche thing. It is absolutely amazing.

In all, it was a good dinner. But I can see why my Mom didn't necessarily love the concept. Peter ate most of the bacon before we even sat down. The presentation on our plates wasn't as pretty as usual. It's a pain to clean up sticky syrup when you just want to go to bed. And there was a much more casual, haphazard feel at the dinner table. I think big breakfasts are best right around the time my sister schedules them in.

So ... I'm thinking, Saturday is only two days away, and without a long run to do, I'm going to break out of my mold, sleep in, make a HUGE breakfast, and invite my sister over.

Lo.