Real Oatmeal

Most of the people who know me also know that I'm sorta weird about cooking. I would rather make a loaf of bread than buy one at the store. I recently made my own granola which, was quite tasty if I do say so myself. A recent discovery in my culinary arsenal has been oatmeal. It's been a bit of an evolution to be sure. It started with the realization that you didn't have to get oatmeal in those little envelopes. You can actually buy rolled oats and add whatever flavoring you like. I'm partial to honey while Sue seems to favor vanilla and cinnamon. But, I digress. Thanks to my culinary mentor, Alton Brown, I recently learned that rolled oats are in fact, not rolled when they come from the field. They're actually cut and then rolled. Instant oats go through the extra step of being par boiled and then dried for your cooking convenience. All this led me to the discovery of something called steel cut oats. These are oats that have been cut but not rolled. They resemble little nuggets. You can't cook them in the microwave and they aren't the best bet for a quick breakfast but, if you've got 30 minutes or so, they make some of the best oatmeal you've ever had.

Oatmeal aside, the point to all this is that we pay a price for convenience. There is no greater pleasure in life than creating something for others to enjoy. That creation may be a meal, a painting, a song, a blog entry, or anything else you care about but seeing the look on the faces of others is worth that extra 30 minutes of effort. Food to me, is more than a necessity, it's one of the great joys in life and sometimes it's a good excuse to get my wife and daughter to hang around in the kitchen with me for 30 minutes while I make oatmeal. That beats using the microwave any day of the week.