How to cook porridge.

I never liked eating breakfast when I was a child.

It was something I was meant to do between waking up and going to school and as I didn't like either of those things, I saw breakfast as a reason to stay in bed and carry on dreaming.

                                            I dreaded

                                                                  those

                                                                        mornings

                                                                                        of scratchy vegemite on toast.

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However,

         I remember occasions of my Mother making me a bowl of porridge with a little drizzle of honey.

I can't remember now if it was quick oats or rolled oats;

                                 I wouldn't have known the difference at the time.

           I think it would have been made with water,

                                                      possibly on the stove,

                                                                                     but probably in the microwave. 

When I was young, I found it confusing to see ingredients go into the microwave and come out as something else.

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I have few recollections of eating porridge during my later childhood and early teens.

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But when I was 18, after a brief romance with scrambled eggs, I started making porridge of a morning.

Every morning.

I practised with different ingredients and techniques.

I had to practise before it could become a ritual.

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For years I made my porridge with rice milk and dates.

                                                                                        Or some variation on the theme.                                                                                                     Quick oats on the stove.

I eventually shifted to rolled oats with cow's milk. Or half water/half milk. Some mornings I would add as many ingredients as I could; dried paw paw, shredded coconut, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, linseeds, honey...

                     It made me feel like I was travelling somewhere exotic each morning

                                                                                                               

                                                                                        Even when I hardly left the house.

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I curtailed my porridge routine after I went travelling and stayed with friends who partook in a more traditional porridge experience. I would get out of bed and find my friend slowly stirring the porridge in a big red cast iron pot while my other friend brewed three cups of sweet black tea. Together we built a ritual of sitting at the table over late Summer mornings quietly eating our bowls of porridge dusted with cinnamon and drizzled with honey.

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When I came back home with a large jar of leatherwood honey I stuck with the half water/half milk slowly stirring method for some time.

There was a period where I tried stirring with my left hand instead of my right

                                                                                                   to see how that would feel.  

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I'm still in a bit of a 'traditional' porridge routine. I like the cinnamon, the honey....

I'm such a natural,

                       some mornings

                                             I get up,

   just tip some oats in a pot

                                                          and cover it with water.

I've been thinking of measuring lately.

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There are days where I don't stir the pot enough or I leave the room and it overboils,

But porridge is a ritual to me.

I have practised and experimented.

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I continue to learn

how to cook porridge.

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