'You can't have toast for breakfast again' she says. I've just woken up, I'm 16 years old, and the last thing I want is my mother's lecture. 'It's important to have something different every day. You need a balanced diet'.

I know better than to talk back to my mother. I've heard this lecture before, and I'm furiously bristling, because all I want is toast, but I push the lever down and tell her I'll have something else tomorrow.

She's right, of course. Having a varied diet is a solid way to get a variety of nutrients. She was raising us vegetarian too, so had educated herself on what foods might help absorb iron better or provide much needed protein. Breakfast was often baked beans on wholemeal bread, scrambled eggs with parsley, banana porridge - all on rotation. I loved her porridge, with bloated sultanas and soy milk. Her scrambled eggs were melt in the mouth. But at 16, you don't want to be told.

Decades later, I'm buying avocadoes in season so my husband has something other than vegemite toast. You can't tell a grown man just as you can't tell a 16 year old. Some battles aren't worth fighting. But he'll vary his vegemite on toast diet by adding avo to it, or goat's cheese. If I make him scrambled eggs on toast or halloumi and tomatoes on toast he's keen as mustard, but I'm not his personal cook. My generosity in this regard is reserved for Saturdays.

At the moment, I'm making pineapple porridge in the microwave most mornings, a wierd mix of Scotland and Bali that works. Volcanic hot pineapple in creamy oat milk porridge with psyllium and honey is quite delicious.

'You can't have that every morning', I hear my mother say. Hang ups extend well into adulthood.

This morning, she'd be pleased. Avocado and lemon juice with pan toasted pepitas and sunflower seeds, dukkah and boiled egg, with a drizzle of chilli oil.

Take that, Mum.

It's delicious, but tomorrow I've having pineapple porridge again, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

With Love,

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