Beloved Possessions, Pt. 1

This is a Cuisinart Rice Cooker. Yes, it cooks rice. But also, and more importantly, it cooks oatmeal. As you can see, it's shown here with the essential ingredients--oatmeal, brown sugar and Vietnamese cinnamon.

I don't know what I love more--that I can make oatmeal while screwing around in another room, or that I actually like the smell of oatmeal.

The convenience factor is huge--half a cup of oatmeal, another of skim milk, another of water, plug it in, walk away. When it clicks over: Yay! Oatmeal, creamy and delicious.

But the part where I LOVE oatmeal is pretty great too.

I have what scientists call "zero sense of nutritionally appropriate foods." It's not that I'll eat anything--I won't eat anything that tastes of Fake Grape, Fake Strawberry, or really any of the Fake Fruit flavors (I'm looking at you, Jolly Ranchers.) I'm also not big on dehydrated onion, whey or processed cheese--basically anything used to flavor a Frito-Lay brand product. (I have a Proustian relationship with Pringles Cheez-ums, but let's leave that aside.)

But I will--and do--eat things that are not part of a balanced diet. A lot of cheese--artisanal cheeses, made in quaint English farms, but still cheese. A fair amount of milk (see earlier post re: lattes, and today's list of oatmeal ingredients.) Salad only if I've made my own dressing, usually with 3 egg yolks and 1/4 lb of grated parmesano reggiano.

But miracles of miracles, oatmeal--that wonder food, that defeater of cholesterol, that cleaner-outer-of-colons--smells like heaven to me and tastes like ambrosia. I'd rather eat a bowl of oatmeal than a Cinnabon laced with equal amounts of cinnamon and sugar.

I don't know why. No one ever impressed upon me the deliciousness of oatmeal in my childhood. In fact, I much prefered Apples 'n Cinnamon flavored Cream of Wheat. (A food that now, I cannot even TRY to gag down. It takes like Glade Plug-In flavored gruel. What happened to my taste buds between my 18th and 21st birthdays? I went into college addicted to White Cheddar Cheese Wheatables and I came out with a fondness for Colston Basset Stilton, preferably aged by Neal's Yard.)

I hate to say it, but I think it might be in my DNA. My beloved oatmeal claims to be the authentic Irish article. If the good people at McCann's are to be believed, the Irish people have been sucking down their products since we first dragged ourselves out of the bog. I seldom attribute personal qualities to my heritage, but I don't see another explanation. I smell oatmeal and I fairly swoon with love. That's gotta be genetic.