Every Saturday morning, which is blissfully later each year that my children have grown old enough to fend for themselves for a couple hours, we stumble out of bed and do these exact things in this exact order: Make Americanos in the Moka pot. Hard-boil several eggs and plunge them in very ice water so they’re not warm-centered (shudder) by the time we sit down. And then I mix up a simple wholegrain soda bread but bake it as scones, so it can be done in 15 minutes. We use these minutes to pull out all the fruit left in the fridge and cut it up; fanning it out on a platter makes us feel fancy, and not like it’s the dregs that were left at the bottom of the produce drawer. If we’re feeling ambitious, we juice a couple oranges. If we have grapefruits, I loosen the sections of a few (I’m team grapefruit knife, not spoon, not that you asked) halves. I’ve been known to slice up pears and blue cheese with walnuts when the craving hits in the winter, and or apples with sharp cheddar in the fall. In the summer, it’s an abundance of berries or stone fruit or melon, sometimes with homemade ricotta if I have it. If we have avocados, I like to slice them.* Then we nudge the kids to set the table, which always includes salted butter and apricot jam (my favorite), and, because I do not have any argument left in me by Saturday, Nutella and raspberry jam (everyone else’s).

We call it Castle Breakfast and we started this weekend ritual a few years ago when we stayed at a couple castles-turned-hotels in Ireland. I love fancy hotel breakfasts; the teapots and civility, the sunny rooms, the little jars of jam, the fresh fruit, so ideal for grazers like me. And I realized I wanted this very much to be part of every weekend, something to look forward to after the cold cereal and rushed mornings during the week. But only if I could do it in, like, 30 minutes tops. I’m neither a domestic goddess nor a morning person, although I bet they often come in the same package.

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