Lily Eats

Breakfasts, in memoriam: Starting with school--Cheerios. Cream of wheat intentionally neglected to breed lumps. Blueberry danish till the boys pointed out on the bus they turned my teeth blue. Sour cream donuts. Bacon, egg, and smoked mozzarella sandwiches on crusted Italian bread. Almond croissants with hot chocolate in a wooden booth at the Pratt dining hall--early, too early for anyone else to be awake. Whole-wheat everything bagels with jalapeno cream cheese. Tamales from the woman with no permit who sold them out of a blue cooler on Myrtle Avenue. Pecan swirls six to a plastic tray split with my father. Eggs for the entire summer with Dave. White fish and wild mushrooms and tamari-roasted broccoli tucked back at Sam's parents. Chocolate cake with applesauce and Alix. Noah used to drink green juice in the morning to counteract the previous night's whiskey, I just ate toast. Cinnamon sugar donuts with sheets of crystallized cinnamon from a bakery in Linthicum, by Molly's where the vines took over the house until the neighbors stopped complaining. Her plants were taller than her self. Oatmeal with bananas or pumpkin or blackstrap molasses that fall I read that molasses was good for junkies AND anemics because it bolsters your blood and makes you sturdier. I felt happy, but it was too sweet. Granola, vanilla soymilk, and frozen wild blueberries when we decided we would all quit soon and should eat as much for free as possible. Things Adrian and I cooked together, always barefoot, always two steps to the side of each other, Sherry's raw muesli at the smooth wooden table, giggling, ready to jump on her bike. The time Sweeney and I talked and I didn't disagree with him necessarily and we both put hot sauce over everything. Things I ate because Hunter S. Thompson did and I had no idea how to be sixteen. Lazy-man pancakes the morning after parties in high school, which was basically pancake batter with apples or chocolate chips scrambled in a pan. It was delicious, and it fed all of us, and we had no desires yet to exceed that.