31/05/2025
Colour Breakfast feast with me
The morning sun streamed through the half-open window, painting golden lines across the old wooden table. On it sat an arrangement so vibrant, it seemed to hum with life — the Colour Breakfast.
It wasn’t breakfast in the usual sense. No eggs, no toast, no steaming cups of coffee. Instead, it was a feast of hues, a carefully curated palette of emotions, stories, and memories — served not to the stomach, but to the spirit.
There was sunset orange — a thick mango paste smeared across a handmade ceramic plate. It reminded her of the days in Ìjẹ̀bú with her grandmother, peeling fruit in the courtyard, laughter rising with the dust. Next to it sat deep indigo beans, slow-cooked and dark as midnight prayers — their aroma evoked stories told around flickering kerosene lamps, secrets whispered in the hush of dusk.
A bowl of tomato red, crushed pepper stew, glistened like burning coals. It was fierce, unapologetic — a flavour of heartbreak, of bold choices made and never regretted. Just beside it, a smear of earthy brown yam purée, plain but grounding — like the silence between two people who understand each other too well to speak.
Then there was the sunny yellow — akara balls fried to perfection. They were joy itself, crackling with the memory of Lagos mornings, street corners filled with gossip, engine noise, and the sizzle of hot oil.
Each colour, a memory. Each dish, a language.
She sat in silence, not to eat, but to absorb — to remember. The Colour Breakfast was her ritual. A canvas she painted anew every week, where ingredients were emotions, and spices were details too sharp to forget.
And when she finally rose from the table, the sun a little higher, her heart a little fuller, she knew she had been nourished. Not by food — but by feeling.
