Journal entries for April, 2007

Enthused by Meg's suggestion, I bought a tin of McCann's Steel-Cut Oatmeal and determined to try making some oatmeal on the stovetop. The instructions on the tin call for sprinkling 1 cup of oatmeal into 4 cups of briskly boiling water, but I wanted to try it with milk. I also didn't need to make four servings, so I halved the recipe and set 2 cups of milk in a pot on high heat to boil. In less than a minute, the milk poofed up and shot out of the pot and poured all over the stove. Sigh. I'm getting way too familiar with the process of cleaning this stove.

Later in the day I decided to try again, using water as the recipe prescribes, with no variation other than halving the ingredients.

[Entry Continues...]

On Saturday I flew back down to PR for work. I was excited, because it meant I could go back to my beloved panadería, with the fresh-squeezed orange juice and the delicious egg-and-cheese sandwiches and the even more delicious oatmeal. But when I stopped by there, starving and ready to delight in its culinary splendors, I was shocked to find that they had closed down. I guess they just couldn't afford to stay in business without my consistent, reliable patronage. They tried to wait for me, they did, but six months was just too long for them. I never should have moved!

Now I'm regretting lost opportunities. I always meant to ask them about their oatmeal recipe — I've experimented with lots of variations but I can never manage to make anything nearly as tasty as theirs. I kept putting it off, figuring, "there's always tomorrow." But tomorrow never came. Carpe diem, my friends. You never know when that person or breakfast establishment you love so dearly will be wrenched violently from your hands by the Fates.