Debbie Millman: A Breakfast Conversation

On Coffee and More Coffee

For subscribers both free and paid:

In the coming months, Poor Man’s Feast will be featuring breakfast conversations with a wide variety of artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It will almost always include a recipe.

Each conversation will be released for paid subscribers only and live in the archives. Free subscribers will have access to a portion of the conversation, as always. A portion of the proceeds of every breakfast conversation will be donated to a number of organizations dedicated to feeding children at both the macro and micro levels, beginning with Save the Children.

Thank you - Elissa

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Photograph by John Madere

I find brilliant podcasts to be a great comfort, and I am highly selective when it comes to them. It started here: more than twenty years ago, I was driving to New York from my mother-in-law’s house in Farmington Connecticut, it was an early Sunday morning, and I heard Krista Tippett interview Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, then the chief rabbi of Great Britain. Hearing these two greats of divinity and thought, I was nudged off the highway and onto the shoulder in the early haze of a New England morning by the combination of distraction and focus, to listen closely and scribble notes on a used Starbuck’s napkin with an eyeliner. Thus began my true understanding of what good conversation is, and its possibilities.

Few podcasts — that’s a strange word for what this was; it was an intimate and revelatory dialogue — have had a similar effect on me. In conversation format, they necessitate the host do two things that are anathema in our culture of distraction and me-first-ism: they require that the host ask, and listen. And Debbie Millman is among the few astonishing hosts who do this, and do it brilliantly and with great generosity. Over the years, I have listened to her conversations with Temple Grandin, Indigo Girls, Celeste Ng, Chip Kidd, Rick Rubin, Megan Rapinoe, Steven Heller, Cheryl Strayed, Jacqueline Woodson, Dani Shapiro, Nick Cave and Bob Faust, Anne Lamott, Tim Ferris, Krista Tippett, Maira Kalman, Priya Parker, Hrishikesh Hirway, Oliver Jeffers, and so many others, and every one of them has delighted, enthralled, moved, and educated me. I was honored to be among Debbie’s guests when Motherland came out in 2019 (I had an epic headcold that day), and she was the first person to ask me about the place of music in my life—a question I neither expected nor had a suitable answer for that would not leave me weeping. Debbie’s Design Matters is about the broader world of creative culture, and seems to me to be rooted in Dieter Rams’ key for good design: that it be honest and authentic. Every one of Debbie shows is, profoundly so.

Over the years, I have had the honor and pleasure of getting to know Debbie, who also is the author of the seminal Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Interaction of Art and Life, and Why Design Matters, and is the Chair of the Masters of Branding Department at School of Visual Arts, and the editorial and creative director of Print. A born-and-raised New Yorker, she lives with her wife, author Roxane Gay and their dog, Max. Their lazy-day-breakfast ritual makes me swoon.

As a fellow New Yorker with certain ideas of what breakfast is, I am not surprised that Debbie’s days must begin with a cup of coffee. Here’s what she told me.

Of all meals, breakfast seems to me to be the most personal and ritualistic. What is on your table every morning? Does it change on the weekends? 

I am a creature of habit and there is absolutely nothing—nothing—that I can consider doing in the morning before having a cup of coffee. But it has to be a very specific kind of coffee, as I take my coffee very seriously! I’ve been buying my beans in bulk from McNulty’s Tea & Coffee, a heavenly 125-year-old shop on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village that has been one of my all-time favorite places to visit for decades. Several years ago, after moving in with my wife Roxane [Gay], she got into the gloriously generous habit of setting up the coffee-maker to go off before I wake up every morning, and then bringing me a cup while I’m still in bed. This is especially kind of her, given she only drinks her coffee from Starbucks (don’t ask).

While my first cup of coffee is always consumed at home, I often stop for a yummy iced-latte from Sullivan Street Bakery en route to my office at the School of Visual Arts. As for any accompaniment; sadly, I am not much of a breakfast eater. Frankly, it is the only time of day I am not really hungry, so I have forsaken it without much thought for most of my life. When I do indulge in “breakfast food,” it is usually during weekend brunch wherein I will devour a classic Eggs Benedict (sans ham) from the Empire Diner or the Huevos Rancheros from Cookshop, which is the absolute best in the world. (EA: Agreed.)

I've found that the children of breakfast people tend to grow up to be breakfast people. Is this true in your case? Did you grow up in a breakfast-loving household? What was your childhood breakfast tradition like? 

Both my parents had strange, disordered eating habits. My dad was a junk food junkie and often indulged in Drakes Ring Dings, Yodels, Coffee Cake, and Devil Dogs, which I confess I also loved for years and even redesigned in 1998. (Did you know the Drake’s mascot is named Webster?) My mother was hypoglycemic and macrobiotic and I (thankfully) have no memory of what she ate in the morning. For a few years, she pressed her own carrot juice from a new-age juicer, but she abandoned it all after turning orange. An occasional treat for me were steaming bowls of homemade hot cereal—Wheatina or Cream of Wheat—lovingly prepared by my dear maternal grandmother, Lillian, when I slept over at her apartment in Brooklyn. Sometimes she even threw in some sliced strawberries or bananas.

Debbie: The most extraordinary breakfast I’ve ever had was in 1987 in the Hotel de Crillon in Paris.

I know that you do a lot of traveling; is there anything that you long for/have to have/must have/carry with you in the mornings when you aren't home?

Coffee, coffee, coffee. I often buy a small half-pint of fresh milk after landing in a new city so I don’t have to add the dreadful creamers hotels often provide. While Nespresso’s are preferable to any instant coffee, they are not even close to a freshly prepared latte from a local cafe, so that tends to be my first stop before I do anything when I am not at home. 

What is one of the more extraordinary breakfasts you've had? Where were you? 

The most extraordinary breakfast I’ve ever had was in 1987 in the Hotel de Crillon in Paris. Yes, the scrambled eggs were perfectly fluffy and buttery, but it was the grilled foie gras—which I tasted for the first time in my life—that was truly mind-exploding. I was in a white, too-large bathrobe, we had ordered room service and I will never, ever forget that first warm, rich, sensuous bite. Sigh.

It's a quiet weekend morning; your schedule is open and there's nowhere you have to be. Do you prefer to have breakfast in or out? What would be the ideal scenario for you? 

I am home and I have slept late; it is 11:30am. I take my first sip of McNulty’s coffee from bed. I lounge a little bit, then take Max out for a walk, and we stop at Sullivan Street Bakery and order an iced-latte for me and get a cornetti to go for Roxane. Then we slowly make our way over to the little Farmer’s Market on 23rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenue and get a bagful of cinnamon rolls and an olive loaf from the lovely, shy bread man selling Orwashers, some new pickles and mixed olives from the rowdy pickle-monger at the Pickelicious stand, some Honeycrisp apples and Kirby cucumbers from any of the wonderful fruit and veggie stands, and with some fresh flowers, depending on what they have. Then we walk back home and make a plentiful, colorful spread for me and Roxane and Max to eagerly tuck into.

It's been my experience that, as adults, we become somewhat steadfast in our breakfast styles and habits, especially when we're single. When Susan and I got together almost 25 years ago, we faced an impasse: she was tea, I was coffee; she was sweet, I was savory. She eventually won me over by making me a breakfast of the most extraordinarily perfect poached eggs on toast that I've ever eaten anywhere, before or since. Has being married altered or changed what or how you both eat breakfast?

Not yet. I am still not much of a breakfast eater, though I have recently begun to experiment with oatmeal if Roxane makes a Starbuck’s run. I add some dried raisins and cranberries and it is not bad! Roxane is a bit more like my dad—she loves a good piece of coffee cake. It’s too bad he passed before we met; they could’ve shared their love of the crumbly, cinnamon treat. Her dad happens to make a superb coffee bundt cake; I am sure he’d have loved that too.

Thank you, Debbie.

And now, I need a good cup of coffee.

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Heidi Swanson’s Coconut Baked Oatmeal

From 101 Cookbooks

Photograph by Heidi Swanson/101 Cookbooks

First: This is not Debbie’s recipe, nor is it mine. Second: It is a perfect dish to make the day before you’re pretty sure you’re going to have a laze-in, you know you’re going to want oatmeal, and it’s freezing outside (it’s 50 degrees F today in New England; will it ever be cold again?).

Heidi says: An extra special baked oatmeal - banana, coconut, vanilla, coconut milk, and some winter citrus, all baked into fragrant, golden-topped magic.

Serves 8

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter or coconut oil, melted and cooled slightly

• 2 bananas, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces

• 1 grapefruit, in segments

• 2 cups rolled oats

• 1/2 cup shredded coconut

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain salt

• 1/3 cup maple syrup (or coconut nectar)

• 1 cup full-fat coconut milk

• 1 cup water

• 1 large egg

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 3 (blood) oranges, peeled and sliced into cross-sections

• To serve: coconut milk with a splash of rose water (to taste)

1. Preheat the oven to 375F / 190C degrees. Use 1 tablespoon of the butter or coconut oil across the inside of a square 8-inch (or equivalent) baking dish. Spread a single layer of bananas across the bottom of the buttered baking dish, then sprinkle the grapefruit across as well.

2. In a bowl, combine the oats, coconut, the baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, coconut milk, water, egg, the remaining butter or oil, and the vanilla. Sprinkle the dry mixture over the bananas in the baking dish. Drizzle the coconut milk mixture over the oats. Arrange the oranges across the top.

3. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until the top is golden and the oats are set. Let cool for a few minutes. Drizzle with the rose coconut milk (optional).