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Tuesday, January 14, 2020

There's Porridge, and then There's Porridge

When at home, on a chilly morning, I'll choose to cook up some nice, steel-cut oats, rather than have cold cereal with lots of fruit. Sometimes it'll be eggs and toast, but many times, oatmeal.
I call my version of oatmeal, "Elf Oatmeal", since it contains quite a few sweet things like Will Ferrell would have in the movie, "Elf". I even include maple syrup, as he is partial to, although ours is sugar-free.

My recipe, enough for two, is made to start with only one serving of Trader Joe's Steel-cut Oats, and water and and then I heat it while the pot is covered. As it cooks, I cut up a banana and some strawberries, leaving the pan uncovered as I stir them in. I continue to add a few red seedless grapes, blueberries, raisins, tart dried Montmorency cherries, and as it bubbles and needs more liquid, I add almond milk or low-fat milk, so no worries about being lumpy or thick. For a little special flavor, I add a couple of squirts of sugar-free maple syrup. After it's all placed in the bowls that have been warmed in the microwave, I stir in chunky peanut butter, a little brown sugar, or perhaps Splenda, some sort of berry jam, like boysenberry, and more of that sugar-free maple syrup. I heat a cup of low-fat milk in the microwave, adding 1/2 to each bowl, so nothing gets cooled down by adding it cold. My husband used to turn up his nose at the idea of oatmeal for breakfast, but after he tasted my concoction, he even requests it some mornings.

Sometimes when we go out for breakfast, I hesitate to order the oatmeal that most restaurants serve, since they usually only offer raisins, brown sugar, and milk. Only one time was I pleased with what was offered. It was at a diner in Massachusetts, and we were served by a waitress that reminded me of "Flo", in the old TV show, "Alice". I knew I could get jam and syrup from her, but when I asked if she had peanut butter, she came back with, "Creamy or chunky?"
"God bless you!", I said.  I could have kissed her.

On a recent trip to Ireland, we stayed at a B&B in Kinsale, on the Southern coast, for an entire week. We were served such an assortment for breakfast, by our host, Jimmie Conran, each morning. He always remembered what our favorite things were, and he encouraged us to have porridge, as if it was a tonic for the soul. "Is porridge a type of oatmeal, or is it cream of wheat?" I asked. "Oh, it's oatmeal, but I make it over night and I like to know who will be having it so I'm sure to prepare enough," he explained in his melodic Irish accent. I succumbed, but said, "Only a half portion, if that's all right," since he had already brought out a half pink grapefruit, already sectioned for me. It was a grapefruit from Spain, and unbelievable sweet and juicy. My mouth is watering now, just thinking about it.

Then, along with the French Press coffee pot, which we were instructed to wait a few moments before pressing down, he brought me my half bowl of porridge. He pointed out the ingredients on the table to ad: honey, cinnamon, tiny bowls of raisins and blueberries, butter, and milk and sugar. He didn't balk at all when I asked for maple syrup. Amazingly, this new recipe became a new, if not favorite concoction that I looked forward to each breakfast. I mixed it all in to my bowl every morning as if it was a ritual.

Jimmie's breakfast didn't stop there. He always offered eggs cooked to order, sausage or bacon, (which had no fat to speak of), and white or black pudding. We shied away from the black pudding, since we knew it was usually called blood pudding. The white pudding, he said contains some oatmeal, and I think it tastes like a sausage patty, which I'm partial to. There's always the basket of bread on the table, and we both loved the fruit bread, spread with his soft butter, and brought a few slices of the wheat bread up to our room wrapped in a napkin to save for sandwiches we'd make for lunch. After a couple of days, we figured out that we didn't have to order everything that Jimmie offered us, as if we were eating an entire buffet. Some of the folks at the other tables, we noticed, had smaller breakfasts of eggs and sausage and bread and coffee. It didn't take us too long to learn our lesson.
We left the care of Jimmie, at his B&B called San Antonio,
almost tearfully, in a cab that he go generously called for us, and headed for the train station.

It was a long travel day, with a train to Tralee,  and then a bus that took us the rest of the way to Dingle. Mistakenly, we dragged our rolling bags and backpacks all over town trying to find our next B&B, thinking it was just around the bend. Probably, we should have tried to call a cab, since the walking became too much for Doug. We found a pub on a corner and asked directions. "It's just up that hill," the bartender said. After looking out the door and up the hill, it was decided that it would be best to take the load off our feet and stop for a Guinness.

Reinvigorated, we tackled the hill, stopping to look at the charming rock walls along the way.

We finally found Highfield House, on up the hill, and were thankfully greeted by Stephan. He took took our bags off our hands and manfully carried them upstairs for us.
His Mum, Mary, served us breakfast in the breakfast room,  each day. At first I didn't dare try the "porridge".
On our last day, she said, "But you must try it with a shot of  Bailey's, dear!"
Bailey's Irish Cream, Hmm.... a liqueur that I've avoided, with no reason that I can think of. So I tried it.
Hmm.... Now That was yummy! It wasn't thick, but I added some milk, then raisins, and butter and the liqueur added a savory coffee flavor to it.

They also had a sideboard full of lovely bowls of grapefruit, and stewed prunes, and a platter of cheeses. Then, out comes what we actually ordered....scrambled cheesy eggs for me and scrambled eggs with onions and lox for Doug....and of course lots of bread and butter. Once again, we'll have to learn the lesson that it's not up to us to order everything on the menu.

After we came back to California, we had one night to stay in a hotel. It was a Days Inn, a pretty reasonable price, and it included what they called a "continental breakfast". We could tell we were back in America, by the usual offerings of do-it-yourself waffles, bagels, toast, yogurt, coffee and tea. ...except the waffle machine was broken.
 We almost left to go to a restaurant for breakfast, and then I spotted a big electric pot that said "Quaker Oats" on it's side, and the usual cheery face that I've seen on the side of the cardboard canister all my life. I decided to give it a try.

It was surprisingly good! I found some jam, peanut butter, and raisins, and heated up some milk in the microwave. I even added just a little touch of coffee to try to bring back a hint of the Bailey's. It may have had to be eaten from a styrofoam cup, but it was passable.
No worries. Soon we would be home again and have access to all my usual ingredients. In the meantime, I've found that I don't have to be so nose-in-the-air about my oatmeal, oh er, porridge.

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