The Morning After: Breakfast For One

Day-to-day breakfast can be an undercelebrated meal. Often, it's just whatever eggs or cereal we scarf down before running off to work (late...again) or, even, eat en route while checking e-mail on our phones. Enter Rise and Shine, a food blog with a very simple, strangely enjoyable premise: one person's breakfast, photographed every single day. The images have a comforting rhythm to them. They often feature the same, basic arrangement of eggs, fruit, toast, and tea, but this sameness allows the occasional, slight differences to peak out at us knowingly. For example, when there are two plates instead of one. "Who's over?!" we want to ask, but the pictures give nothing away. It's intriguing, and we like it that way.

It's also fun to note the passage of time, as embodied by house plants that go from fresh to slightly wilted to replacement.

What we like best about it, though, is that it serves as a reminder to slow down; to pay attention to our morning hours. What are our breakfasts like? What did we do for the five minutes we had to ourselves this morning before plunging into the day? What would our snapshot be? Because, ya know, sometimes we could all use a good linger.