Breakfast in Bed

I love making someone breakfast in bed. Ever since I was little I would try to wake up early enough on Saturday to surprise my Mom. (Sundays my Dad would make the bacon and eggs before we went to Church.) We had this pale sky blue wooden tray that I loved to use. Just the right height to go over your lap and it was my favorite color back then.

My Mom is German... very German, so breakfast was often various special European cold cuts, assortment of cheeses, specialty breads, rich butter (butter in Europe is nothing like the bland flavorless pale "butter" we know in the States), soft boiled eggs, sliced tomatoes & onions, some chopped herbs... you get the idea.

My next younger sister would help me sometimes. She would run out and pick some flowers, find a little vase or cup to decorate the tray and she would help carry up the plates. The tray was heavy, so we would lug it up to Mom's bedroom door and then race down to get the plates we carefully put together. Sausages, cold cuts and cheeses on one plate fanned out garnished with sliced tomatoes... butter in the middle of another plate with chopped parsley and chives garnishing it (ok not chopped.. more like we're not old enough to use the big kid knives but we are allowed to use scissors! lol) surrounded by wonderful rye breads, grain breads... and coffee in a thermos that Dad made before leaving for work so we wouldn't spill it.

I miss those deconstructed European breakfasts. Often I wake my husband with a cup of coffee. It is much easier than yelling. (Although dumping a bag of frozen marbles under the sheets when I was in labor and he wouldn't wake up was immensely gratifying.) He's not one for breakfast until he's been awake for a few hours.

When the tomatoes start coming in a few months from now... I will make my daughter her favorite breakfast. Everything bagel with cream cheese, sliced tomatoes with onion powder, salt and pepper. It has to be good tomatoes and then the simple open faced sandwich is amazing. On the European breads it is divine.

I need to find a good German delicatessen now!