Back before breakfast.

Feta or 12-month aged comté. Eggs in all their forms. Blueberry Pancakes.

Runners have choice words for what they eat before heading out. Priming. Tanking up. Fueling. It’s practical, unsentimental. Oddly, all sourced from car mechanics. Grease the gears. The body needs energy, so you give it energy.

On the early mornings, I rise and run before my household has woken, fuel means a banana inhaled standing up. A spoonful of maple straight from the jug. One of those Decathlon barres de dattes énergétiques bio et sans gluten myrtille shoved into a pocket on the way out the door. Heavens forbid, when a program calls for extended miles, a gel pins down the feast. Whatever. It works. Motivation churns, the legs move.

That utilitarian (generous equivalent for sadistic) version of fueling is efficient. It’s also why I appreciate, so profoundly, the stark contrast of what happens at our table every morning. And wherefrom comes the promise made with my partner to always be back in time to make and eat the food that will really start our day. To superimpose a real plate of food on the ‘materials’ I’d pushed down closer to dawn.

Breakfast in our house isn’t just fuel. It’s care. Attention. Ritual. It’s choosing the slower thing in the face of ease and speed.

My wife, who’s French, brought this ritual with her from childhood. Sitting properly at the table. Breaking bread together. No matter what. It’s a practice we’ve adopted as our own, and on all mornings, the four of us gather there. Plates set. Brews brewing. Conversation drifting in and out. Eggs cooking while someone keeps a nose scanning the air for the readiness of toast. Phones are left elsewhere, because heat has consequences when you stop paying attention.

The whole thing is inconvenient. Deeply so. It takes planning. So much anticipation and intention. Just like waking up for early runs, an elaborate morning spread for four is ambitious. Even just once in a week, let alone every single day. But, that’s the point. Turn toward the extra effort, trust that it’s the right thing to do.

Our menu leans salty. More hummus than honey, though sometimes they marry well. Thinly sliced avocado on sourdough, maybe with radishes or sun-dried tomatoes. Feta or 12-month aged comté. Eggs in all their forms: omelette, poached, fried, scrambled, soft or firm. Occasionally, the razzle dazzle of breakfast burritos. Occasionally, blueberry pancakes. Corsican pomelo in season. And always fresh-ground drip coffee, an American relic we refuse to surrender to borders and the siren song of Nespresso capsules.

Some of this muscle memory comes from a brief but formative 2012 stint as a sandwich maker at Powers Market in Vermont. The mythology of my younger self evolving to embrace an early rise. Five a.m. starts. Industrial trays of bacon. Learning how to quarter an avocado for both coverage and beauty, how to layer so everything holds together. It was honest work. Feeding people well. One sandwich, the Lotus Avocado Bomb, even made it onto the permanent menu. I didn’t know then those skills would resurface years later as part of our family’s morning rhythm.

My own breakfast history prior to that was less curated. Growing up between two households in Manhattan, mornings were inconsistent by design. Pop-Tarts. Entenmann’s cakes. Frosted Flakes at varying levels of sogginess. Sunday Zabar’s if we were lucky. High school meant bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll, eaten half-dressed while finishing homework on the subway. It kept me fed. It taught autonomy. Different time. Different jobs. Different ideas about nutrition.

I understand now that we are cooking future nostalgia. It’s a practice in presence. And it’s shaping more than the day ahead. Platefuls of memory.

The smothering perfume of butter melting in the pan. The sound of forks and spoons backing conversation. The way morning light hesitates to hit our south-facing table in winter. These are small, lasting things. Slivers to draw from. They fuel the body, yes. But they also fill the heart. Fill the proverbial cup. They give just enough steadiness to stay present, here, when everything else pulls outward.

So, in knowing that we have the privilege of options, we do the harder thing. We wake a little earlier. Prepare with intent. Sit a little longer.

That choice has started to frame how I think about writing too. Another expression of endurance. Another place where I don’t wait to feel ready. You fuel first. You show up. You bank hard into the hard thing, and hope it awaits your arrival with open arms. Sentence by sentence. Step by step. Like running, like making breakfast, writing doesn’t reward shortcuts for long. You can borrow energy, but you repay it with interest.

So, I begin the same way. With care and with an idea that this is significant. Drops to oceans. Actions to habits. From the first footfall out of bed, I keep eyes on what’s in front of me. Miles, words, family. Nourish the bodies. Fill the minds.

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Kiel Bonhomme wrote this piece.
Kiel is a writer, editor, translator & poet from New York City,
living and working in Lyon, France.
He specialises in Freelance Editorial & Creative; click through to find his work.
You can find more of Kiel’s Notes and world here.
Article 5/7 for the 2025 December release.

Blueberry Pancakes.