psa: porridge

Today's soundtrack:
"Má Vlast: 2. Vltava (The Moldau)" by Bedrich Smetana, performed by Wiener Philharmoniker and James Levine

Little known Kate fact: I love porridge.

"Really?" you scoff. "Who, aside from 2 year olds, eats porridge? Willingly?"

Answer: Me.

"Okay," you concede, "but it's not as though you can't eat anything else for breakfast, right?"

When I went to Florence, Italy for five weeks, I brought along Quaker Oat Bran. Really. Ask Lady J.

I still remember sitting at the kitchen table, trying to sneak in another spoonful of brown sugar before Dad noticed. And, oh, the trauma of too much milk liquifying the brown sugar chunks too quickly. However, the porridge never tasted better than when it was in Nana's fishbowls. I thought it had to do with the crockery, but I now suspect it had more to do with the Scottishness.

Naturally, my love of porridge in the morning has led to porridge-related mishaps. Although, in fairness, these mishaps had more to do with a lack of morning coffee than with me accidentally pushing the wrong buttons on the microwave, exploding the oatmeal bomb inside. Once I had to clean my own dishes, I realized what a pain dried porridge is to clean up, so the oatmeal went into the pantry for a 6 year time-out.

But no more. I live in Scotland now (did I mention?) and the only way to convince my body that it's not freezing to death is with a porridge breakfast. So the other day off I stopped by the Co-op and picked up a bag of Scottish porridge oatmeal and a big bag of brown sugar.

What follows is a photo tutorial of how to make the perfect bowl of porridge.

Step One: Move to Saskatoon, marry a Spaniard who then finds work in St. Andrews.

Step Two: Move to Scotland.

If you can't complete these first two simple, easy steps, move directly onto..

Step Three: 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup milk, and 2/3 cup porridge oats

You can tell by the photo that it's proper porridge oats, not oat bran, that you'll need.

Step Four: Combine all three ingredients in a pot, stirring occasionally.

Bring to a boil, then immediately reduce heat to a simmer for 3 minutes. Stir constantly, or you'll end up with lumps.

Step Five: Pour into a bowl. Add all the brown sugar you can before your dad finds out (Spanish husband won't mind, as his sweet-tooth is about as bad as yours). Add a wee bit of milk.

Et voila! The perfect bowl of porridge. Now you can go and face the gale-force winds and damp cold that is a Scottish spring.