Aw Man! I Got Salt in My Oats!

Before tonight, I’d never made oatmeal before. I mean, in America, I’ve poured the contents of a pre-packaged oatmeal pouch into a coffee mug, added water, and stuck it in the microwave. And a year ago I would have fully considered that to be “making” oatmeal. But tonight I actually made oatmeal. I bought oats. I added sugar (actually, first I added salt cuz I thought it was sugar then I realized my mistake and scooped the salt out as best I could though, you know how salt is, it lingered). I then added cinnamon and tiny pieces of cut-up apple from the tree outside my apartment. I finally added hot water, stirred and enjoyed.

Except I didn’t actually enjoy. I couldn’t, you see. Oatmeal isn’t good. It’s kinda bland and a little gross. I used these same oats a week ago to make oatmeal cookies and they were delicious but that’s because I added about a pound of both brown and white sugar. That’s the trick. In order for oatmeal to be good you almost have to add more sugar than oats. This makes me question the dusty, so-called oatmeal I grew up on. Exactly how much sugar was in those things? How many oats? Was I just eating hot sugar with a few dried oats floating around?

I’m gonna give it another shot without the salt and see if that makes a difference. While my health (and by “health” I mean “the size of my ass”) is an important factor, I’m poor right now and both sugar and oats are cheap. So if I eat hot sugar soup, with a few oats tossed into the mix to make my stomach think it’s full, I’m not above enjoying the crap out of a meal like that. Not in the slightest. In fact, I’m kinda looking forward to sugar soup. Sounds delicious.

I’m gonna actually try and learn how to cook while I’m here. Learn about spices and the merits of garlic, things like that. I’m gonna look up recipes and make my own pasta sauces. I’m gonna fill the big hole in my heart left by the absence of Mexican food with my great-grandmother’s zucchini bread recipe. Which reminds me, what exactly is the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber? Is there a difference? I’m under the impression that they are the same thing and plan on treating them as such. So her zucchini bread may turn out to be cucumber bread which I’ll instead call Nyama Puri Bread.

I’ve mastered the salads, mainly the shopska variety, but winter’s on its way and I’m gonna want warm food, plus I think vegetables aren’t really available during that time of year. At least not on a Peace Corps budget. So I’ll become a baker of things and share my creations with my neighbors as a sort of bribe to make them like me. I mean, I’ve never met a baker I haven’t liked immensely as it’s hard to resist someone who smells like an angel from sweet-sugar-vanilla-goodness heaven. That’s my favorite heaven. I’m pretty sure my guardian angel is from that heaven.

-Age