Oatmeal

It’s been raining buckets all day, and I haven’t wanted to do a thing, so mostly I didn’t. (Except the gym, which was amazing.)

Slow cooker oats was just the right foil to the day’s chill, with enough left over to set aside for the duration of the winter storm.

I use freshly rolled oats, but any variety of old-fashioned oats will do. (If you need them to be gluten-free, make sure they are processed at a gluten-free facility; while oats don’t have gluten, they can pick it up on the equipment from other grains. If you only have quick-cooking oats on hand, it’s all good, they just won’t be as creamy and they have a bit less nutrition, but they’re still wonderful.)

Method
Stir one cup of rolled oats into 3 cups of water* (double or triple or halve or whatever mathematics make sense to you and your equipment / size of your army**) in a 2-quart slow cooker. I like to add in a little cinnamon for cooking, but it’s totally optional. They say a dash of salt is optional too, but i find it makes a world of difference.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or overnight.

The oatmeal will have much less definition than you’re probably used to, but it will be super creamy tasting. To enhance the creaminess, you can add some actual fresh cream at this point—the slow cooked oats will really incorporate it well.

Scoop out and serve in a bowl.

I like mine topped with freshly grated ginger, Vietnamese cinnamon, and some jumbo flame raisins.

Some folks go the peanut butter and banana route, or the berries and walnuts route, or the swirl of Nutella route. It’s a wonderful base for any of the toppings you’re into at the moment and have on hand.

*Any liquid, really — I hear half milk and half water makes a really nice balance, and I’m looking forward to trying it. I would recommend whole milk if you go this route. I am also considering going straight three cups of milk and having that replace my morning yogurt. Want to make it dairy free? Go with almond milk!

**Leftovers keep in the fridge for up to five days.

Ultimate Wisdom

 

I continually chose to know I was going to be enough. I could have chosen that pressure, and I chose not to have it.

Carrie-Anne Moss on the ‘Matrix’ Movies and Playing an Action Hero in Her 50s 

Sister, Outsider

"I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences. And it was the concern and caring of all those women which gave me strength and enabled me to scrutinize the essentials of my living. 

The women who sustained me through that period were Black and white, old and young, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual, and we all shared a war against the tyrannies of silence. They all gave me a strength and concern without which I could not have survived intact. Within those weeks of acute fear came the knowledge - within the war we are all waging with the forces of death, subtle and otherwise. conscious or not - I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself - a Black woman warrior poet doing my work – come to ask you, are you doing yours?"

Sister, Outsider -- Audrey Lourde

Netflix's Soundtrack, Season One

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Throwback 2016

With Santa at the Grandin.