Breakfast In The Garden

A note on slow mornings, filter coffee, and the long table in the garden.

The breakfast verandah is one of the parts of the house we use most.

It runs along the east face of the bungalow and catches the morning sun from about seven onwards. There is one long table — teak, scratched, old — and chairs that are pulled out from the dining room when the family is large. The garden sits just below; the lake is not far beyond.

We grew up eating breakfast here. So did our parents. So, by now, have the great-grandchildren. There is a photograph from the 1960s, taken from the front lawn, that shows our grandfather at the same table with three of his children. The angle has not changed very much. The teak is still the same teak.

Breakfast at The Dunnottar begins quietly. The early risers — the ones who are up for the birds on the lake — usually come in first, when the filter coffee is ready. The later ones drift in after. Nobody is hurried. The table fills slowly and stays full.

What is on the table depends on the day. Always: coffee, tea, fruit, curd. Often: dosa with chutneys, pongal, sambar, eggs, toast, homemade bread, jam from the hills. Some mornings are more South Indian. Some mornings are simpler. The point is not abundance for its own sake. The point is that breakfast is made in the house and eaten without hurry.

The conversations are slow. We have noticed that people who come to The Dunnottar for the first time often check their phones at breakfast on the first day. After a while, they do it less. The table does some of that work. It is hard to scroll when someone two seats across is telling a story.

There is a particular kind of memory that gets made at long breakfasts. Not the dramatic kind — the kind you plan for, with the camera ready. The other kind. The kind that turns up unannounced years later when you smell filter coffee in another city. The kind that is, in some way, the whole point of having a place like this in the family.

We open the bungalow to guests because we want this kind of breakfast to happen more often, not less. For us, and for people who care for the same things. We think of it as a small effort against the rush of everything else.

If you come to stay, this is where the day often begins.

— The Puliyadi Family