BREAKFAST MENU
2020
ink on paper + text


drawings and text were published in Dinner Bell vol.2, Pittsburgh, 2020





I took a photo in a supermarket on the morning of Christmas eve, a year ago. It was quite early but with my swollen, sleepy eyes I spotted an excellent image: a four-pack of beers, a margarine, and a liter bottle of vodka rolling slowly towards the till on the black belt. That is a rather disturbing breakfast, I thought.
This started an investigation of breakfast sets bought by people in the morning.










1/ White Christmas
vodka, 4 beers, margarine
Bought on the day of Christmas eve, early morning. Perhaps it was just the last shopping for Christmas supplies missing for the great celebration of the birth of baby Jesus — the wife sent the husband to the shop early so it's done and they can continue preparation. However, the unique combination and the timing of purchase could implicate that products constitute a breakfast menu, disturbing and undoubtedly unhealthy breakfast. It would also materialize my mother’s theory on how people spend social money.



2/ After-party
borsh, cream cheese, tomato, beer
A nutritious hangover set, providing strength and vitality. It contains an iron from beetroots, the protein found in cream cheese, full-of-potassium tomato, and a priceless hair of the dog — cold beer. This legendary composition was compiled by us one frosty Sunday morning in Warsaw. After eating it is recommended to lie down and watch Colour Me Kubrick, starring John Malk
ovich.


3/ Le petit-déjeuner sucré
quince taste vodka, ice cream
Someone here has a sweet tooth! Quince vodka, a Polish classic: rich, fruity palette, a bit sour and sweet at the beginning, strong later, pleasantly burns a throat with its 32 percent of alcohol. Combined with vanilla ice cream it is a wonderful morning dessert combination, extravagantly paid with a one hundred bill.



4/ Smoker
marlboro pack

The good old ciggies <cough>




5/ Port d’ Amsterdam
nuddles, beer, apple
A late breakfast, part of the houseboat life of my friend Stefan in the South of Amsterdam. The beauty of this set — said Stefan himself — is that you can match it with the current season by changing the types of apples and the taste of noodles. Indeed, the combination of Granny Smith with a vegetable flavor soup and Heineken beer perfectly fits the springtime with its green palette. Golden Delicious combined with chicken flavor (halal) is a fantastic choice for a sunny summer.




6/ Fuel
red bull, hot dog, pall mall

No matter what the weather is, on her first morning break the store manager K. goes to the stand on the opposite side of the street to buy a hotdog and Red Bull, her daily fuel. The lady there knows her well and they often gossip a bit about misbehaving customers or crowds in the city. Then K. sits on the stone bench and eats a hotdog together with a Red Bull, but not all of it, so she can still have a sip with a cigarette afterward. Sometimes, when the queue for a stand is long she switches the order and starts with the Pall Mall. They recently closed the hot dog stand, so I guess she will have to invent a new menu.




7/ Classic Dutch
butter, hagelslag, coffee
When I was a child, we hosted two lovely blond Dutch boys at home, as a part of a school exchange. They brought lots of gifts including gouda cheese twice bigger than my head, licorice candy, and a huge box of hagelslag — chocolate sprinkles. As a gesture of appreciation, we started to bake an enormous amount of cakes to use them all. Soon, however, we realized our mistake. In the Netherlands, you eat it for breakfast on a piece of bread with butter, preferably with a cup of coffee. Lekker!




8/ Instructor’s choice
roll, egg paste, nestea 2l, marlboro gold
Eaten by an instructor day after day for two months before conducting classes, it became a hit among the surfing community in the Hel peninsula. Fast and convenient — that's what you need — buy it on the way to the beach, and eat it there looking at the sea, then start the day. Energy, 2 liters of hydration, and nicotine in one simple set.



9/ Pork Barrel Roll
roll, margarine, pork, lettuce
In today’s breakfast menu, we have a wheat kaiser roll (inappropriately called by some people a swastika-roll), with a thick layer of margarine on both sides and of course local pork (there is no vegan version, sorry, but if it helps, there is a lettuce leaf inside). All that elegantly wrapped in plastic, distributed by a president of a county in front of the coal main. It is, indeed, a European roll of the XXI century.