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| toasted hazelnuts |
on sunday i will have breakfast at my parents’ home in islamabad. this first breakfast is ritualistic; there shall be numerous cups of hot cardamom laced tea to erase the sleepiness of a disrupted night and quarters of roghni naan toasted till crisp in the toaster. two hopeful and expectant cats will anxiously await their share of breakfast. mama will give them titbits of bread and adam’s cheese. before we sit down to eat i will bring forth bandaged and bubble wrapped jars of homemade preserves and condiments that i will have carried for my parents.
when i was little weekday breakfasts were a fraught affair. there were boiled eggs to contend with along with my dadi’s insistence on drinking a glass of buffalo milk. she would claim that it was strained but i knew that was untrue. little pieces of cream and skin that would make me gag would prove otherwise.
