Hand Me Downs

Oatmeal is good.  Pretty good.  

But porridge is better.  Especially on rainy cold days.  A few years ago when I was on tour with Lori Chaffer and Sandra McCracken, we had breakfast at Lucile’s in Boulder, Colorado.  There, I had porridge for the first time.  I thought about it for weeks after.  I called them for the recipe- I may as well have been committing espionage.  Maybe it was the good conversation, the good friends we were visiting with, but it’s never quite been the same since then. I’ve been on a quest.

Eventually I found The Golden Spurtle, the website for The World Porridge Making Championship.  Wonder of wonders, they post their award winning recipes online.  Now, I think porridge is to the UK what biscuits are to the Southern US.  It’s basically the same recipe all around, but the nuance is what makes your recipe special.  And the story, the history, of course.  The basic differences between oatmeal and porridge, to my mind, are: 1.  You cook porridge real slow. 2.  You add cream to porridge, and cook it in.  Slowly.

This morning, we had porridge.  I had boiled it and left the oats soaking on the stove last night,  which went a long way, as I was in a bit of a hurry this morning.  And porridge doesn’t hurry well.  Once the porridge was thickened, I added walnuts, cinnamon and figs to mine.  Kenny had cinnamon, walnuts and agave and maple syrup.  He is suspicious of fruit in his porridge.  The figs were courtesy of my friend Ashley from Animal Vegetable Miracle book group, and the idea was courtesy of my friend Alice.  

If you live in the South, the gray, rainy days are lingering on.  I suggest you make porridge and make the most of it, Goldilocks. Happy morning.