Oatmeal, for Eight Voices
This morning we're out of bread and granola, and it's too chilly for a smoothie. I give the jar of rolled oats a skeptical look as I run water into a pan.
Mom used to make oatmeal a lot--though we just called it "oats," unless we were talking about oatmeal cookies. We ate it with butter and brown sugar. I didn't think about it one way or the other, until one day my teenage throat rebelled against bland gooeyness and swollen boiled raisins, and I couldn't swallow.
Sean (happily): Oatmeal? We haven't had that in a while!
Sean made plenty of oatmeal, too, when Glen was little. I mostly stuck with toast.
Stacey (pregnant, nodding): I have texture issues with oatmeal too.
Stacey and I fed our kids together a lot. They would eat anything. Greg taught their kids to eat oatmeal raw from the jar. It's not bad, if you chew awhile. I poured oats into the bowl where Glen stirred up his "snacking dough"--peanut butter, carob powder, tahini, raisins, whatever he wanted, all mushed up and eaten raw.
Greg (chewing a mouthful of stir-fry with soy sauce and cold oatmeal): We decided, oats are a grain, so why not eat them like rice? But it doesn't really work...
I pour oats into the simmering water. I'm never sure how much to use.
Mom (confidently): Two-and-a-half to one.
It took me by surprise when, in his last year of high school, Glen started cooking for himself.
Glen (dragging pans from a cabinet, half asleep): How do I make oatmeal?
Me (feeling like Fraud Mom for not knowing this): Uh... I think Mom always says two-and-a-half to one.
Glen: Two-and-a-half to one what?
Me: Start with a cup and a half of water and then, like, a cup of oats? (thinking, that doesn't seem right...) You can add more, if it seems like it needs it.
Glen: More water, or more oats?
Me: Whichever. Or there's a recipe in The Joy of Cooking, if you want. (thinking, a recipe, for oatmeal? You've got to be kidding.)
Glen (confidently): Nah, I'm fine.
Today I keep thinking I'm not making enough--then reminding myself that Glen's moved out. It's just Sean and me for breakfast.
Granny (reaching for the stove knob): Watch out, those glass pans boil over!
Granny simmers her quick oats into a thick pudding. When I visit her, sometimes I cook steel-cut oats. Cooked right, steel-cut oats are chewy, nutty, creamy, and utterly un-gooey. They've reconciled me to oats, enough that I'll even eat regular oatmeal now and then--if we're out of bread and granola, and it's too chilly for a smoothie. Steel-cut oats take awhile to cook, though. Granny likes them too, but she still makes quick oats herself.
This oatmeal is taking too long. I pour in more oats. There are a few dried pears left; I chop them to add at the very end, so they'll soften but not dissolve.
Glen: Do we have raisins?
Me: No--there are figs you can cut up. Or prunes.
Glen doesn't know prunes are supposed to be gross. He and Stacey's son Keegan went on a trip with my parents, around age ten, and it was discovered that neither one of them knew how to pour cereal from a box. What can I say? They both knew how to hand-pollinate corn.
Keegan (sadly) (much younger than ten): Whenever I eat oatmeal for breakfast, I have a bad day.
Stacey: Yeah, I think you need more protein in the morning.
Me: (to Glen, as he cuts up figs with scissors): You could add some nuts or sunflower seeds, if you want more protein.
Glen (much older than ten): Nah, I'm good.
Sean and I eat our oatmeal with butter and brown sugar. The oats I added halfway through give it some texture; my throat doesn't protest. The pears are sweet and chewy. I carefully don't think about boiled raisins. It's pretty good. It's just the two of us. It doesn't feel lonely at all.