Cookies for Breakfast

An ode to small indulgences

Photo by ildipapp/Canva

I hate January. Every year, it seems impossible that the first month of the year contains the same number of days as six other months of the year, including the one directly preceding it. January is interminable by comparison.

I know many people who opt for deprivation during January, challenging themselves to a month without sugar or alcohol. New year, new you, or something like that.

I tried this once when my boss inspired me to get on the Whole30 bandwagon back in January 2017. “Inspired’ is, perhaps, a misleading word. I knew I was going to be hearing about the Whole30 diet multiple times a day for the next 30 days, so I thought I might as well take it one step further and join in the utter lack of fun.

Whole30 was the first and last diet I ever attempted. Maybe I felt marginally better, but it was hard to tell because I mostly felt hungry. Apparently, I need carbs to properly fill me up. I was also consistently stressed out about all the time I needed, but didn’t have, to devote to food prep and eating.

Throughout endless weeks of pointless deprivation, I learned that I have no sensitivities to any foods whatsoever and that I really, really like gluten.

Now, I take the opposite approach to January. I let myself indulge. Not excessively — I try to find just a little something extra that will help carry me through these dark, damp days. And yes, usually that little something is food- or beverage-related.

This year, it’s cookies for breakfast. I didn’t intentionally decide to start eating cookies for breakfast. My daughter baked them last week, and no one else in the family was eating them.

Typically, when my daughter bakes things — which, by the way, is one of the few perks of sharing a house with an adolescent — entire batches of treats mysteriously disappear within 24 hours. Everyone in the household claims both innocence and indignation.

But this particular batch of cookies lingered, probably because they are slightly undercooked with just a hint of sweetness. I find them divine. Both crumbly and moist, each with a thumb-sized smear of homemade strawberry and rhubarb jam that a neighbor gave us for Christmas, because very occasionally neighbors still do such neighborly things.

I’ve taken to warming two each morning in the toaster and eating them over the counter, washing down the crumbs with fresh coffee.

While I indulge, I gaze out of the square window above our kitchen sink, which frames a monochrome world that for the last five days has been sealed in ice. I wonder if I’ll ever again feel the press of sun against my face. I wonder if green leaves will ever again burst from the endless tangles of bare branches, if solid ground will ever again emerge from the slick, stubborn sheets of ice.

I’m being melodramatic, I know. Evergreens still offer pops of color. The sun has made occasional, if halfhearted appearances since New Year’s Day. The ice arrived only last Wednesday.

But the square patch outside my kitchen window still looks hopelessly bleak. So I close my eyes. I chew, feeling jam-kissed crumbs tumble down my throat.

The cookies taste like butter and sunshine.

“Mom!” my son squeals, breaking my reverie. “Are you eating cookies for breakfast?”

“I am,” I say, because I don’t know how I can plausibly deny it. (I’ll admit, I was hoping no one would catch me.)

“Why?” he asks, indignant.

“Because it’s January,” I say.

This answer seems to satisfy him. School has been canceled for a week, the ground is too slick to go out and play, and we’ve been trapped in the house for the better part of 10 days.

We all need something, just a little something, to carry us through.