Your Mother’s Day Breakfast Isn’t Special If It’s for Everyone

I do not know a single thing about birthing or raising children, but I do know many things about cooking breakfast and brunch, particularly breakfasts and brunches with a lot of meaning attached to them. If you are planning to make a big breakfast for the mum in your life, I have one piece of advice: Make a meal that is just for her.

It might sound nice to enjoy a platter of pancakes with the whole family, but you can do that on any old Sunday, and narrowing your serving size to “single” means you can focus on that plate, and that plate only, and make it really nice. Fancy breakfast food is not hard to make, but it can be challenging to scale up, particularly if you are not the member of the family who does most of the cooking.

Instead of cooking a breakfast or brunch that’s “good for a crowd,” make a perfectly composed plate of food for one person — the person the day is supposed to be about. Cutting the kids (and yourself) out of the equation means you don’t have to take their picky palates into account, and scaling down means you can afford more expensive ingredients. Instead of a classic Benedict with bacon, make one with crab meat. Instead of orange juice with basic sparkling wine, get her a little bottle of Veuve Clicquot (and do not add any juice to it). Instead of fluffy pancakes, make Crêpes Suzette. Even if all you do is buy some really good bagels, you can make sure to do it right, and include as much smoked fish (and capers, and onion) as Mum desires.

But what of the children, you ask? Let them eat cereal, or hard-boiled eggs, or something similarly low-effort. Though they are the reason Mum gets this day, the day itself is not about them. Depending on their age and desire to be in the kitchen, you can still enlist their to help: They can decorate cookies, make cards, fold napkins, or polish the silver. (I don’t know the right age for learning how to saber a bottle of Champagne, but I feel like it’s 12.)