By Late June heat. The apartment is warm in the afternoons even with the fans going — Chicago summer at full strength, the humid heavy kind. I wake up early because the morning is the best time, the light coming through the east window in the kitchen and the street below still quiet. I make coffee and eat breakfast and write for the blog before the day heats up. This has become my summer routine: early writing, midday cooking tests, evening reading for the classroom. I am building toward August at a steady pace.
Went to the Pilsen library this week — a branch I had not been in yet, a few blocks from the apartment. Checked out four books on special education instructional design. Also found a used cookbook section in the back, where someone had donated a stack of older cookbooks: one on Polish cooking, from 1978, that has a pierogi recipe with actual measurements. I checked it out with the intention of comparing it to my Babcia Rose notebook. I read it on the couch and took notes in the margins. She would be appalled by the amount of butter in the official recipe. She would be right that it is correct.
Made cold brew coffee at home for the first time — coarsely ground coffee steeped in cold water in a jar in the fridge overnight, strained through a paper filter the next morning. Concentrate. You dilute it with milk or water. One jar of cold brew made eight cups and cost about forty-five cents per cup versus the dollar twenty I had been paying at the coffee shop on 18th Street. I made the math and the math said: make the cold brew. I have been making the cold brew every week since.
Summer is teaching me things. Not classroom things — life things. How to live in this specific city on a teacher's salary, where to shop and what to make and when to cook ahead. How to be a person in Pilsen, which is different from being a person in Oak Lawn. I am the same person. I am also different. Both of these things are true and I think that is what growing means. Or one of the things.
The cold brew became the coffee, and the cold brew needed a companion — something I could put together the night before or build quickly in those early kitchen hours before the street below woke up. This breakfast parfait with roasted strawberries fit exactly into the rhythm I was building: real ingredients, low cost, the kind of thing that tastes intentional even when you are mostly just trying to get out of your own way before the heat arrives. Summer in Pilsen is teaching me that the small rituals are the ones worth keeping.
Breakfast Parfait with Roasted Strawberries
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 2
Ingredients
- 1 lb fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
- 1 tablespoon honey, plus more for drizzling
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
- 1 cup granola
- 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt
Instructions
- Roast the strawberries. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Toss the halved strawberries with 1 tablespoon honey and the vanilla extract on a rimmed baking sheet. Spread in a single layer and roast for 18–22 minutes, until the berries are soft, jammy, and beginning to caramelize at the edges. Let cool slightly.
- Layer the parfaits. Spoon 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt into the bottom of each glass or bowl. Add a layer of granola (about 1/4 cup per glass), then spoon over half the roasted strawberries and their accumulated juices.
- Repeat the layers. Add another 1/2 cup of yogurt over the strawberries, then top with the remaining granola and the rest of the roasted strawberries.
- Finish and serve. Drizzle lightly with additional honey and finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt. Serve immediately, or refrigerate the roasted strawberries separately and assemble just before eating.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 22g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 62g | Fiber: 5g | Sodium: 180mg