Automatic Breakfast

In the morning, after a night's sleep that left me feeling like I had suffered some sort of defeat at the hands of an unruly mob, I stand in the kitchen and try to focus.  Coffee has been made and is cooling slowly in the coffee pot.  I rub my eyes and recall odd images from my sleep, feel unsure of my balance, just a little.  Why did I get up, I wonder.  Shouldn't I be sleeping longer than this?

I can't figure out what to do.  I take two steps toward the sink and stop.  No.  Not time for food yet. Two steps back toward the bedroom.  I stop again, rub my eyes some more, frown.

Back into the kitchen and stop.  Coffee?  I decide yes coffee.  I can't remember what that means though.  Mug?  Yes, mug.

Find mug, shuffle to coffee pot, pour some into the mug I find in the cupboard.  Set it on the table.  Food?  No, not food.  Food later.

I go to the fridge and open it, overriding my own decision.  It's an instinct, I guess, a reflex action.  Stand me in front of a fridge and I will reach in and get food out and cook it.  Well, it looks like no food after all.  Fridge is pretty empty.  Some primitive wrinkled Neanderthal part of my brain takes as a challenge:  Make something from nothing.  I take stock and formulate a plan, but it takes a while.  Brain synapses are wearing frumpy sweaters and complaining.  I go and get the mug from the table, sip the strong liquid, hoping to feel fortified and more alive sometime soon.

Somehow with the moving and shuffling, I am feeling reassembled.   Coffee is running around my brain throwing circuits back on, turning on the lights.  It's weird, but I can feel it happening.

Ancient inborn reactions to food are occurring:  I am in a kitchen, there is an onion in my hand.  Must be time to cook.  I feel like a detached observer of my own hands, which are flying into action.

Pan on the burner, blue flame is licking underneath.  Onion on cutting board is stripped of its paper, stem end cut off.  Sharp knife slices end to end and the onion falls into two halves.  Radial cuts of the cool onion and then cross cuts formed small cubes.  Pan's hot; in goes olive oil and some butter, which wrinkle and squirm as they warm quickly over the heat.  Onion dashes into the pan and hisses in surprise.  A minced quarter of red pepper joins the onion.  They soften steadily, and their aroma lifts up into the kitchen, right past my nose.  A flick of salt, a few grinds of pepper, dust it with dill, a pinch of oregano, a few leaves of basil.  Looks and smells pretty respectable.  

Two eggs are cracked into a bowl and beaten rapidly.  They foam and swirl to a soft yellow.  The onion sizzle is good; time to fold egg into the pan, so in it goes.  A bit more butter.  Grated parmigiano like a little snowstorm drifts over the nearly done frittata.  One tortilla left in the whole universe and it's landing in a warm pan next to the egg pan.  It puffs up, sending up the warm nutty fragrance of toasting grain. The food is done, ready to eat.  

I set the plated food down and look at it steaming before me.  I warm up the cuppa joe with more from the pot and sit down to something like a miracle: Food prepared by an expert.  Everything's quiet again. What just happened?  I'm feeling like someone else just cooked in some parallel universe kitchen and handed the food across to me.  It's good, tender, and my mean dreams are all gone with the night.  More coffee and I can call it a morning.

Now it's time to write.