Our weekend morning breakfast rituals used to be fast. Coffee first, something thrown together before my daughter woke up, the whole thing over before 8 AM. But summer changed the pace of it. The light comes in earlier now, and somehow that makes everything slower instead of faster.
The Window Stays Open
There's a window above the sink that I crack open while the coffee brews. In cooler months it stays shut, sealed tight, the kitchen a warm box. Now it's open by six. The air is already soft. Not hot yet, just soft. That's the word. And something about cooking with outside air moving through the room makes me less rushed.
My daughter has started waking up earlier too. She pads into the kitchen in bare feet, asks for strawberries before she's fully awake. I slice them while the skillet heats. She stands on her step stool and watches. Doesn't help, really. Just watches. I love that she wants to be there for it.
The Dutch Baby Phase
Sometime in late spring I started making Dutch babies on weekend mornings. Not because they're impressive, though they kind of are when they puff up in the oven. Because they're four ingredients and ten minutes of active work, and then the oven does everything while I drink my coffee standing up.
Eggs, flour, milk, butter. The cast iron goes in the oven to preheat. I blend everything in a jar because I still don't own a stand mixer and at this point it's become a personality trait. Pour it in the hot skillet, close the oven door, wait. The whole kitchen smells like butter turning golden.
My husband usually appears right when it comes out. Convenient timing. He's genuinely impressed every time, which is sweet because it's the easiest thing I make. I dust it with powdered sugar and pile whatever fruit is around on top. Right now that's peaches. Stone fruit season makes me feel like summer is doing me a personal favor.
What Slowness Actually Looks Like
I think people imagine slow mornings as this curated thing. Linen tablecloths, a French press, everyone sitting down together in golden light. That's not what it looks like here. It looks like my daughter eating peach slices off the cutting board before they make it to the plate. It looks like me refilling my coffee three times because I keep forgetting it on the counter. My husband reading something on his phone with one hand and eating with the other.
But it's slow in the sense that nobody is going anywhere. No one is checking the clock. The morning just stretches out, and we let it.
Winter mornings have their own beauty. The warm kitchen, the sealed-up feeling. But summer mornings have this quality of being porous. The boundary between inside and outside dissolves a little. You can hear birds. The neighbor's sprinkler. A dog somewhere.
The Quiet Part
Here's what I keep thinking about. These mornings won't always be like this. My daughter won't always want to stand on her step stool and watch me crack eggs. She won't always be small enough to hold a single strawberry in both hands like it's something precious.
So I'm trying to be in it. Not photographing it, not optimizing it. Just being in the kitchen with the window open and the people I love eating something simple that I made with my hands.
That's enough. That might be everything.