I call it my "breakfast spread." It's not some freaky vegan-friendly compressed palm oil alternative to butter or a jar of homemade "preserves" ready to be dolled up in gingham and sold at the neighborhood farmers market. But it holds the secret to my speedy breakfast nonetheless.

Every night before bed I arrange on the stove top the following: one weighty one-quart pot, worthy of a child-size Johnny Appleseed but branded, I hesitate to confess, by Martha Stewart; one Pyrex liquid measuring cup; one half-cup dry measuring cup; one shapely blue ice-tea glass that imparts to any beverage it holds a certain flair; a canister of whichever brand of quick oats was most recently on sale; a banana; two spoons; and a knife. The relative positions of these items is calculated to maximize efficiency by minimizing morning movement: glass and liquid measurer in front since the Brita pitcher and the soy milk for the oatmeal are the first out of the Frigidaire's frosted gates when the alarm sounds at seven sharp, stirring spoon propped against the pot's interior, et cetera.

When, still slightly groggy and preoccupied by futile attempts to remember my dreams, I do enter the kitchen in the morning, I first turn on the stove. Then I remove from the refrigerator the water pitcher, the soy-milk carton, the jar of pre-ground flax seed, this last brimming with those much-hyped omega 3 fatty acids.
Into the Martha Stewart special go a half cup of quick oats and a cup of unsweetened soy milk, the forming packing a whopping two grams of cholesterol-reducing soluble fiber and the latter chocked full, the packaging assures me, of beneficial "phytochemicals." I stir with one hand while first pouring a glass (and not just any glass, mind you! but that glamor-imparting one mentioned earlier) of water and then peeling the banana with the other. The second spoon delivers a heaping helping of flax seed and, as I remove the by this time bubbling porridge from the by this time cooling burner, the knife handily (the hands involved being mine, of course) adds both sweetness and potassium to the meal in the form of sliced banana.

I take the several steps to the kitchen table, perform the daily demonstration of the only recently acquired skill of swallowing vitamins (a multi, compensating, I hope, for whatever nutrients I left out in my haste or ignorance or moral opposition to factory farms), and chow down. Tomorrow, I think to myself, maybe I'll substitute raisins.

Learn more about this author, Katharine Merow.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about On the go: Preparing a healthy breakfast in 5 minutes?
We want to hear your view. Write now!