Breakfast of Champions

Commentary by Ron Rozelle

Consider, please, oatmeal. 

I’m not taking about those little paper packets that you rip open and dump into hot water and think you’ve got something.  I’m talking about whole grain rolled oats in the same big round cardboard container with the picture of an old Quaker on it that your mother or grandmother used to keep close at hand.

This nutritious, fiber-rich food was once only fed to horses until some brave human decided to give it a try some three thousand years ago.  I put that fellow right up there with the first person who ate a raw oyster. 

My maternal grandfather up in Livingston, who we called Papa Nixon (no relation to who just popped into your mind), started every day with a big bowl of oatmeal that he boiled in milk every morning long before sunrise and before Mama Nixon, my sweet grandmother, came in to reclaim her kitchen.  Papa was long gone by then, across Beatty Street to Livingston Grain and Grocery Supply, the company he founded and oversaw.  In his cubbyhole of an office – barely large enough for a rolltop desk, a wooden swivel chair, and him – he would go over the ledgers and the orders for what would go out on his trucks that day to grocery stores throughout East Texas.  Afterwards, when the clerks and warehouse workers arrived and the place would be open for business, he would walk back across the street and have a cup of coffee with Mama while she ate her breakfast.

Papa’s days were guided by a strict adherence to an unwavering routine, and a solid component of that ritual was his daily serving of oatmeal. I never knew if he ate it every day because of its nutrition and its gastrointestinal benefits or because he just liked it.

A bit of Papa Nixon rubbed off on me.  I boil oatmeal once a week, but not in the wee hours and in water, not milk. I pack the contents of the pan into a plastic container that goes in the fridge and Karen and I spoon out servings every other day or so.  To limit carbohydrates, Karen has imposed a modification of the recommended serving size of a cup to a half cup.  So, to build not only flavor but mass, I doctor my allotment up with a few shelled walnuts, some diced apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, sweetener, a dollop of vanilla almond milk and top it all off with frozen blueberries.  It’s sort of like eating a piece of pie.  And I have never objected to eating a piece of pie.

There are plenty of people who do object to eating oatmeal.  Several have told me they wouldn’t touch it, which I assume means they wouldn’t eat it. Maybe it’s the texture that offends them. A good friend who otherwise enjoys a wide variety of dishes once told me she woul no more eat oatmeal than she would eat cottage cheese (another favorite of mine).

When our daughters were young. I was the regular morning chef on school days, providing cinnamon toast or breakfast tacos or sometimes those big sweet rolls you pop out of cylinders, bake and spread on gooey icing. Those girls were picky eaters back then and I would have been laughed out of the kitchen if I’d plopped bowls of oatmeal in front of them.  They’re all now hovering around the age I was then, and I guess cooking their own breakfasts.  If they even eat breakfast. 

In an attempt to bolster this defense of a hearty breakfast food of long standing I did a little digging to see if any famous people are fans of oatmeal and, if so, how they enjoy having it.  I came up with quite a list.  The trouble is I don’t know who more than half of them are.  But I did recognize some.  Singer Carrie Underwood stirs in vanilla almond milk, sliced almonds, chia seeds, and pumpkin pie spice (which is very similar to my recipe; I always figured her to be intelligent).  Jennifer Anniston adds an egg white to make the texture fluffy (I might try that). And Dwyane Johnson – a.k.a. The Rock – eats two steaming bowls in one sitting, with a splash of tequila blended in.

If I were allowed, I could certainly put away two cups of oatmeal, but without the tequila.  I’m a gin dry martini man myself, but in a glass rather than a bowl.  And not with breakfast.

Not yet, at least.