During the week its coffee and…well it’s mostly just coffee alone with the occasional banana, yogurt or even doughnut to keep it company. Oatmeal is in the mix too, but it’s the stuff of a minute in a microwave and not an elegant baking. The flavors are tame and predictable. After all my focus is on getting out the door and getting done what needs to.

Coffee, in this context, while savored, is savored for the tool that it is. Something that gets me moving, both inside and out. My admin did something dangerous for my coffee too. A large pump bottle of Torani Dark chocolate syrup lurks in the kitchenette and I find half a pump collaborates well with my palette (and likely my tummy). Still appreciation gives way to the raw functional machinery that the morning meal is.

By contrast, the weekend transitions breakfast from mere subsistence to high art. Something I savor in the preparation and consumption of. I still have some of my garden crop of zucchini and tomatoes and with the help of some poor chicken I pursue the holy grail of flavor, form and function. For me as for most, breakfast is a function of the stove top. Of hash, of light frying, of saute. Flavors are simple and mild compared to many a dinner note. Some butter, a little garlic, a little salt, a little pepper. Occasionally a little added spice from red pepper flakes or salsa, but just enough to compliment. Nothing overpowers, yet nothing gets left behind.

Coffee while obviously present, also becomes part of the fold. A bar between measures, a chorus to establish pattern and rhythm. cleaning and neutralizing the tongue before being courted by another bite. Perhaps a cooked cherry tomato who has soaked in a little residual garlic and butter, but provides a tart staccato in mezzo-forte or a yolk dripped bite of the zucchini hash that engulfs as a long flowing legato or a bite of fruit to cool as brief tempo change.

This weekend morning ritual has been a favorite of my adult life. A consistent melody and underlying theme to life’s symphony. From marriage to grad school to postdoc to career. From sobriety to bottom to recovery along the veins of progress. From affair to divorce to humility to hope. From new normal to growing kids to whatever lies ahead.