When I was a kid – many moons ago – my mother made breakfast almost every morning; a service I full-on took for granted. She made eggs or pancakes a lot, but on days she ran late (or just didn’t feel like it) she’d put out big boxes of brightly colored breakfast cereal. Lord how my brothers and I heaped our bowls with those chemical-laden nuggets. Lucky Charms. Cap’n Crunch. Frosted Flakes. Sure beat the horrid porridges my mother also chose to make. So, forgive my double-take when I sat down to a delicious helping of steel-cut oats the other day, deliberately passing up a beckoning box of Golden Grahams.
bo-r-r-r-r-ing…
Like tomatoes, avocados, and yogurt, I have zero fond memories of hot cereal in my childhood. I recall coming downstairs for breakfast, and before even reaching the kitchen I’d smell the distinct nastiness of cooked grains. Quaker Oats. Cream of Rice. Cream of Wheat. Wheatena (the worst of them all). My mother had more choices for hot cereal than she had sons (and she had a lot of sons). It’s like she wanted us to vote for “blandest breakfast”. Mercifully, she allowed small amounts of brown sugar and/or raisins to sweeten things up. And milk. Lots and lots of milk.
I should’ve figured this out decades ago. Hot cereal’s a whole lot better with fresh fruit (raisins are a poor excuse for fruit). Strawberries, blueberries, apples – they all turn “mush” into an appealing “meal”. And the learning curve continues. Rolled oats are better than instant oats. Steel-cut oats are way better than instant oats. And lest you’ve forgotten: anything is better than Wheatena (even tomatoes and avocados).
Tell me this: when was the last time you used “porridge” in a sentence (Brits aside)? What an utterly dated word. The last time – the only time I uttered “porridge” was reading “Goldilocks and The Three Bears” or jigging to “Peas Porridge Hot” (“…peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old…”). My nursery-rhyme days. Porridge doesn’t have a modern ring to it (did it ever?) and yet that’s exactly what we’re talking about today by definition: hot breakfast cereal made by boiling grains in water (or milk). Wikipedia counted ’em – all grain types included – and came up with seventy-five distinctly different porridges. Doesn’t matter. If I’m a kid I still opt for Froot Loops.
You need porridge trivia for your next socially-distant gathering and I’m happy to oblige. Consider the following:
Whole-grain oats date back to 7,000 BC, which sounds like dinosaur times to me (even though it isn’t). The Chinese and the Greeks made claim to the first versions of porridge back then.
Lisa Williams and “The Golden Spurtle”
If you’re supremely proud of your cooking, there’s a World Porridge-Making Championship in Scotland every October. The list of winners looks suspiciously Scottish (i.e. “Duncan Hilditch”, “Ian Cruickshank”, “Addy Daggert”) but last year’s champ was England’s Lisa Williams. She earned “The Golden Spurtle“, which begs a most excellent trivia question: What do you call a stick for stirring porridge?
In 1755 it was documented oats were horse food in England but people food in Scotland. Not exactly a boost to Scottish pride (although to be fair the people’s version was cleaned, toasted, hulled, and cooked).
In Portland, OR you used to be able to buy hot cereal from an oatmeal-only food cart. “Bloop” – with made-to-order mush like “Peanut Butter Banana Dreams” and “Good For You Goodness” – shuttered its wheels in 2011 after a single year in business. I get it: oatmeal’s no passing fad but it’s also no passing food truck.
Your standard can of oats (18 oz.) contains over 26,000 grains. Don’t count; just trust.
The oat capital of America is (drum roll…) Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home of most-popular-brand Quaker Oats. Small town, big factory.
Once upon a time, Quaker Oats included coupons in its oatmeal boxes redeemable for legal deeds to property in Milford, CT. Granted, the lots were only 10’x10′ but you could still be a landowner with a modest purchase of oatmeal. The whole scheme became a property tax collector’s nightmare and the lots were eventually condemned.
Speaking of the Quaker Oats Company, in the 1970’s they came out with flavored instant versions of their hot cereals. “Apples & Cinnamon” and “Maple & Brown Sugar” come to mind (“Ready in Just 90 Seconds!”). God answered my prayers to distance myself from Wheatena. Also deserving kudos, Quaker Oats used to own Fisher-Price Toys. Can’t you just picture the marketing division, trying to develop an “oatmeal plush” doll?
I’m devoted to my steel-cut oats these days but I’m not gonna pretend I’m not tempted by alternatives. Cheerios (especially the “Honey-Nut” variety) is the ultimate oat cereal. Life (especially the “Cinnamon” variety) is another delicious Quaker Oats product. And I’ll never get my childhood love for Lucky Charms out of my DNA. They’ll always be a little more “magically delicious” than porridge.
If you’re like me, you’re prepping meals at home more often than you used to. Your grocery lists are electronic or paper instead of in your head. You may even be meal-planning and on your way to becoming America’s next gourmet chef. But no matter the approach eventually you succumb to food out instead of food in. “Taking away” meals these days means navigating an app, a website, a drive-thru, a phone call, or for the really daring, an unscheduled appearance at the front doors. You never know which approach works until you try a couple. Sometimes you simply give up.
Case in point. Last Friday we took my wife’s truck for a service – scheduled just after sun-up. Leaving the house so early meant breakfast would be out instead of in. My first thought? McDonald’s. An Egg McMuffin is still a pretty good on-the-go breakfast, and navigating McDonald’s hasn’t changed (drive thru, pay at the window, drive away, enjoy). I also admit to a soft spot for the Golden Arches because I worked there in high school.
My wife had other ideas. Since a breakfast sandwich was the order of the day she wanted Einstein Brothers Bagels, and with good reason. Einstein’s offers a choice of five “classic” breakfast sandwiches and another seven “signature” specials: twelve different spins on bagels and eggs. While Egg McMuffins are assembled from just four mass-produced ingredients, Einstein’s creations are made-to-order adventures with options like chorizo, avocado, spinach, and mushrooms. If the choice is Einstein’s or McDonald’s it’s a no-brainer. Except now.
“Save time?” I beg to differ.
Not knowing Einstein’s take-away approach during COVID, I parked in front of the restaurant while my wife went inside to place the order. Nope. Einstein’s allows two options: DoorDash or order from the app. Well blast my bagels – DoorDash doesn’t even deliver to our neighborhood so it was either the app or go hungry. Fine. A quick download and I went in search of the “Order” button. Nope. Einstein’s wants an account first – phone number, email, birthday, credit card, and so on. Fine. At last we assembled our on-line order and I went in search of the “Pay” button. Nope. Einstein’s makes you bank a minimum balance first (and welcome to “Shmear Society Rewards”). Really? A cash reserve for a breakfast sandwich? Once and for all, nope. I X’d out of the app, deleted it from my phone, and left a skid mark or two as I accelerated away.
“McDelivery?” Not necessary.
McDonald’s was also on the way home, a couple miles up the road. We didn’t have their app either but so what? Order at the drive-thru, pay at the window, drive away with an Egg McMuffin, enjoy. We even splurged on hash browns (and an order of breakfast sausage for the dog). A McDonald’s breakfast for two people and a pet costs far less than a similar order at Einstein’s. Was my Egg McMuffin forgettable? Yes. Did I consume my sandwich within minutes of leaving the restaurant? Yes (today’s Egg McMuffin is smaller than your palm). Did I wish I’d had a custom-made Einstein’s instead? Of course. But not if I must jump through a bunch of electronic hoops to get one.
I want to support restaurants through the COVID pandemic; I really do. Our favorite Mexican place has nothing electronic, so you just place a phone order and take-away fifteen minutes later. Our favorite coffeehouse is a converted bank, so it’s drive-thru, pay, and go, lickety-split. That’s all I’m asking for: simple process, no hoops.
Einstein’s theory of relativity assumes accelerated motion (say, a car pulling away from a restaurant with an order of food). Einstein’s Bagels requires decelerated motion (say, the unanticipated time to download, setup, and bank-load their app). Take your pick: Einstein’s approach or Einstein Brothers’ approach? For me, it’s Albert’s way every time.
Our church is weighing creative approaches to conducting in-person services next month. Pastor Bob sent out a survey recently asking we-the-congregation to consider options like outdoor church, weekday church, and evening church – all in the name of social distancing. We’ll also be shaking up the service “touchpoints”, like sharing the peace, passing the (offering) plate, and partaking in communion. The Big Guy doesn’t care about the where’s, when’s, and how’s, of course – just that we have church. On the other hand, He (She?) might have something to say about the music. After all, how does a church organ sound after a three-month absence from tuning?
It’s bad enough our congregation is gloriously inharmonious when we bellow out the hymns (no choir of angels are we), but add in a fully discordant church organ and you have a complete mess. Organs need tuning like the human back needs a chiropractor: maintenance is key. When dust accumulates and seasons change, organ pipes sound noticeably different than they’re supposed to (hence the term “off-key”). Imagine the pitch-perfect tones of a bass saxophone, but instead you get more of a sour wail. That’s an organ pipe sans “tune-up”.
Every one needs tuning
Tuning organ pipes is serious business and can run thousands of dollars per visit. Consider, the biggest organs have as many as 25,000 pipes. The booming bass pipes can be thirty feet long and two feet in diameter, while the little pixie sopranos look more like metal soda straws. Each pipe must be individually tested and tuned no matter how big or small. Tuner A presses a key on the (up to four) keyboards down below, while Tuner B adjusts the pitch of the pipe up above (sometimes on a ladder, sometimes on a suspended platform). It’s hours and hours of monotonous – and in the case of cathedrals, death-defying work, one demanding pipe at a time. Better love what you do.
Here’s another reason organ tuners deserve hazard pay. Imagine you’re suspended hundreds of feet above the sanctuary floor on a swaying rope-suspended platform (I’m already saying “no”), virtually floating like the angels, and as you reach over to adjust the pitch of a mid-sized pipe, bats fly out. Yep, that’s the kind of critters tuners encounter when an organ wants for too long (or a single pipe sounds suspiciously out-of-tune). Squirrels even make their homes in the pipes – though don’t ask me how they don’t go plummeting to their death the moment a note is blasted from the keyboard. Maybe they’re flying squirrels?
The view from above
In the land of COVID-19 there are no organ tuners (or very few). Those Peter Pipers are being denied access to their church-bound “patients” because a) COVID may reside on a surface like, say, a keyboard, and b) no congregation means no offering plate means precious few payments to the Piper. So what do stay-at-home tuners do instead? Why, they tune their pianos of course! Then they play those pianos hours on end. We may come out of COVID with a whole new genre of classical music called “tuner tunes”.
Talk about a sprint from feast to famine. An organ tuner’s busiest weeks are those leading up to Easter, often requiring extra staff and longer hours. COVID downpoured on that parade. Demand for pre-Easter tuning disappeared faster than Mr. Bunny himself. In the case of one tuner – profiled in the Wall Street Journal – 100 contracts withered to less than a dozen inside of two weeks. He furloughed his entire workforce, worried instead over simply paying the rent on his shop.
One day soon, we faithful will walk away from our laptops and wander back into church sanctuaries instead. We’ll spread out over more services. We’ll wave hands instead of shake hands. We’ll drop the offering into the plate from a “safe height”. We’ll bypass communion servers and help ourselves to the bread and wine instead. The organist will play and the congregation will sing; both noticeably off-key. And when that happens give a nod to the organ tuners, who will someday get the pipes pitch-perfect again.
Just hope they don’t need an exterminator as well.
Some content sourced from the 3/25/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “As Coronavirus Shutters Churches, an Organ Whisperer Changes Key”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
When I was ten years old, the progressive rock band “Yes” released an unforgettable song called “Roundabout”. The lyrics included trippy phrases like, “… mountains come out of the sky and they stand there…”, and, “… go closer hold the land feel partly no more than grains of sand…” The words made no sense but the melody hooked me with its driving beat and wandering synthesizer. “Roundabout” and “Stairway to Heaven” – both released in 1971 – are perfect examples of my rock music baptism.
Turns out, “Roundabout” was not a metaphor for the song’s underlying message nor even a made-up word. The lyrics really were spawned from an overdose of traffic circles. Yes was on tour and traveling from Aberdeen to Glasgow when its lead singer Jon Anderson says their van passed through “maybe 40 or so” roundabouts. Anderson promptly teamed up with guitarist Steve Howe to produce one of Yes’s biggest hits. Wikipedia dedicates an entire article to “Roundabout” here.
A “roundabout” (in the UK, of course)
Fifty years forward, roundabouts are more prevalent than ever on our city streets – and in some setups, as mind-boggling to navigate as a Yessong lyric. In a neighborhood near my house, I pass through three consecutive roundabouts to get to a friend’s house. Each has two lanes entering and exiting the circle from four directions. If I’m not conscious of the lane I’m in when I enter a circle, I’ll find myself going round and round before I remember it’s safe to exit from both lanes. If I lose track of which circle I’m in (all three look entirely alike), I’ll exit onto a street nowhere near my friend’s house.
A “rotary”
You’d think we’d have them figured out by now since roundabouts first appeared in 1966 and have proliferated ever since. (By definition, we’re talking about circles tight enough to induce centrifugal force, not the more leisurely curves of an urban “rotary”.) The Wall Street Journal reports traffic authorities still toy with public awareness campaigns, signage, and modified roadway designs in an almost desperate effort to reduce roundabout fender-benders.
Here are two lingering oversights with the rules of roundabouts. First, drivers entering the circle sometimes assume they have the right-of-way over drivers already in the circle. Second, drivers approaching a two-lane roundabout don’t check signage to see whether one or both lanes also exit the roundabout. On the latter problem, I admit to several instances where I had to quickly change lanes while circling, just to exit where I needed to. Changing lanes in a roundabout ranks among the scariest driving maneuvers of them all.
Not in this lifetime
Roundabouts really do make a lot of sense, even if drivers never, ever figure them out. They eliminate electronic signal systems or stop signs. They create a safer environment for pedestrians (who only have to look one direction for oncoming traffic instead of three). They force vehicles to slow down, and statistics show a dramatic reduction in the number of T-bone and head-on collisions. Finally, roundabouts require less asphalt to create a new intersection, and are sometimes enhanced with an eye-pleasing landscaped island in the center.
Look closely and you’ll see (all four) Bristol Circles
The first time I ever drove in circles was in West Los Angeles. A street known as “Bristol Avenue” earned the nickname “Bristol Circles” by teenage drivers in the neighborhood. That’s because Bristol’s four rotaries allowed for a lively game of “car tag”, where my friends and I would zoom around trying to “tag” each other with the headlights of our cars. If we were really daring (i.e stupid), we included the topmost of Bristol’s four circles, which is bisected by busy, unpredictable Sunset Blvd.
Cities in the northeastern states of the U.S. have some pretty good-sized rotaries these days but for the really daring, it’s hard to beat the giant urban circles in France or the tighter many-tentacled roundabouts in the UK. Paris’s Arc de Triomphe rotary may deserve the title “most vicious circle”. Watch the following video and see if you don’t agree. This rotary may be the genesis of the term “distracted driving”. Note to viewer: no lanes. Note to self: no thanks.
Some content sourced from the 3/14/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “Car Crash Mystery: Why Can’t Drivers Figure Out Roundabouts?” and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
Thanks to several weeks of mandated “stay-at-home” here in Colorado, my wife and I limit our trips to the grocery store to every ten days or so. In turn, we’re digging deeper into our freezer, discovering a rather exotic world of forgotten foods. We found a box of gourmet croissants the other day that hadn’t quite earned their expiration date (score!) We also found ingredients to a “healthy” dog food recipe, which will probably never become dog food. But mostly we’re unearthing frozen vegetables; the ones passed over for months (years?) in favor of peas and carrots. And now that we’re out of peas and carrots? Suddenly we’re eating more cauliflower. Cauliflower?
flower power
Here’s my earliest nightmare memory of cauliflower; maybe yours too. 1) steam the florets fresh in a big pot. 2) sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese on top. 3) call it good. News flash: cauliflower isn’t good that way – not at all. It’s just colorless and tasteless, and I remember thinking what in God’s name am I eating here – tree roots? In my childhood evaluation, cauliflower rated below spinach and broccoli. Miles below peas and carrots.
Today’s cauliflower is a whole different animal (er, vegetable). It’s being described as “the new kale”. You see, someone discovered how to “rice” cauliflower a few years ago and suddenly it’s a trendsetting side dish. Someone else discovered how to make crust out of cauliflower and suddenly it’s an option for pizzas. Cauliflower’s popularity surge is probably because of what it doesn’t offer. 85% fewer calories than white rice. 23 times fewer carbohydrates than a wheat pizza crust. There’s even a vegan form of Gruyère cheese out there, with cauliflower as the main ingredient. Keto and Paleo fans are flocking to this great imposter.
The data backs up the newfound power in the flower. Sales of cauliflower are up 40% in the last four years. We’re now buying less cabbage and garlic than cauliflower (in my case, way-y-y-y less cabbage). Cauliflower’s green leaves are the latest addition to salad bars. Aldi, the German company with a delicious cheesy-cauliflower rice (more cheese, less flower), claims it’s now its top-selling product. Aldi capitalizes on this volley of cauli with other products, like tortilla chips and gnocchi. Tortilla chips made out of cauliflower? Now that’s just wrong, people.
THIS is how you eat Brussel sprouts
Cauliflower falls under the same veggie species as the Brussel sprout (as well as broccoli, cabbage, and kale), and I think those little green buds deserve a debt of gratitude. Brussel sprouts may be the original edgy veggie. Back in the day, Mom prepared them the same way as cauliflower (and the same way she prepared every other legume in the world) – steamed with a sprinkle of canned cheese. They were awful. But years later we have sliced and diced Brussel sprouts buried within liberal helpings of grilled bacon and onions. Genius. It’s like you’re only eating bacon and onions, with a slight aftertaste of Brussel sprouts.
Taken the same way, cauliflower now lands on my “consumables” list. I prefer the riced version with cheese (cheese makes everything better). The hybrid pizza crusts aren’t too bad, like cauliflower with cornmeal. Maybe I’ll even give the vegan Gruyère a try. In other words, as long as cauliflower is an ingredient – not the whole enchilada – I’ll bite.
Kale may now be passé, with white becoming the new green (although cauliflower also comes in orange, green, and purple). Take your pick: roasted, grilled, fried, steamed (aka boring), pickled, or raw. Plant cauliflower seeds in your garden and you’ll have full heads in 30 days or less. With all this demand for stand-in veggies, your next bite may beg the question, “is it flour or is it flower“?
Some content sourced from the 3/4/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “‘The New Kale’”: Cauliflower Becomes a Bestseller”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.
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About Me
The sky is not completely dark at night. Were the sky absolutely dark, one would not be able to see the silhouette of an object against the sky.
I should’ve figured this out decades ago. Hot cereal’s a whole lot better with fresh fruit (raisins are a poor excuse for fruit). Strawberries, blueberries, apples – they all turn “mush” into an appealing “meal”. And the learning curve continues. Rolled oats are better than instant oats. Steel-cut oats are way better than instant oats. And lest you’ve forgotten: anything is better than Wheatena (even tomatoes and avocados).
Tell me this: when was the last time you used “porridge” in a sentence (Brits aside)? What an utterly dated word. The last time – the only time I uttered “porridge” was reading “Goldilocks and The Three Bears” or jigging to “Peas Porridge Hot” (“…peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old…”). My nursery-rhyme days. Porridge doesn’t have a modern ring to it (did it ever?) and yet that’s exactly what we’re talking about today by definition: hot breakfast cereal made by boiling grains in water (or milk). Wikipedia counted ’em – all grain types included – and came up with seventy-five distinctly different porridges. Doesn’t matter. If I’m a kid I still opt for Froot Loops.
In Portland, OR you used to be able to buy hot cereal from an oatmeal-only food cart. “Bloop” – with made-to-order mush like “Peanut Butter Banana Dreams” and “Good For You Goodness” – shuttered its wheels in 2011 after a single year in business. I get it: oatmeal’s no passing fad but it’s also no passing food truck.
Speaking of the Quaker Oats Company, in the 1970’s they came out with flavored instant versions of their hot cereals. “Apples & Cinnamon” and “Maple & Brown Sugar” come to mind (“Ready in Just 90 Seconds!”). God answered my prayers to distance myself from Wheatena. Also deserving kudos, Quaker Oats used to own Fisher-Price Toys. Can’t you just picture the marketing division, trying to develop an “oatmeal plush” doll?
I’m devoted to my steel-cut oats these days but I’m not gonna pretend I’m not tempted by alternatives. Cheerios (especially the “Honey-Nut” variety) is the ultimate oat cereal. Life (especially the “Cinnamon” variety) is another delicious Quaker Oats product. And I’ll never get my childhood love for Lucky Charms out of my DNA. They’ll always be a little more “magically delicious” than porridge.
Case in point. Last Friday we took my wife’s truck for a service – scheduled just after sun-up. Leaving the house so early meant breakfast would be out instead of in. My first thought? McDonald’s. An Egg McMuffin is still a pretty good on-the-go breakfast, and navigating McDonald’s hasn’t changed (drive thru, pay at the window, drive away, enjoy). I also admit to a soft spot for the Golden Arches because I worked there in high school.
My wife had other ideas. Since a breakfast sandwich was the order of the day she wanted Einstein Brothers Bagels, and with good reason. Einstein’s offers a choice of five “classic” breakfast sandwiches and another seven “signature” specials: twelve different spins on bagels and eggs. While Egg McMuffins are assembled from just four mass-produced ingredients, Einstein’s creations are made-to-order adventures with options like chorizo, avocado, spinach, and mushrooms. If the choice is Einstein’s or McDonald’s it’s a no-brainer. Except now.
It’s bad enough our congregation is gloriously inharmonious when we bellow out the hymns (no choir of angels are we), but add in a fully discordant church organ and you have a complete mess. Organs need tuning like the human back needs a chiropractor: maintenance is key. When dust accumulates and seasons change, organ pipes sound noticeably different than they’re supposed to (hence the term “off-key”). Imagine the pitch-perfect tones of a bass saxophone, but instead you get more of a sour wail. That’s an organ pipe sans “tune-up”.
Talk about a sprint from feast to famine. An organ tuner’s busiest weeks are those leading up to Easter, often requiring extra staff and longer hours. COVID downpoured on that parade. Demand for pre-Easter tuning disappeared faster than Mr. Bunny himself. In the case of one tuner – profiled in the Wall Street Journal – 100 contracts withered to less than a dozen inside of two weeks. He furloughed his entire workforce, worried instead over simply paying the rent on his shop.
When I was ten years old, the progressive rock band “Yes” released an unforgettable song called “Roundabout”. The lyrics included trippy phrases like, “… mountains come out of the sky and they stand there…”, and, “… go closer hold the land feel partly no more than grains of sand…” The words made no sense but the melody hooked me with its driving beat and wandering synthesizer. “Roundabout” and “Stairway to Heaven” – both released in 1971 – are perfect examples of my rock music baptism.
The data backs up the newfound power in the flower. Sales of cauliflower are up 40% in the last four years. We’re now buying less cabbage and garlic than cauliflower (in my case, way-y-y-y less cabbage). Cauliflower’s green leaves are the latest addition to salad bars. Aldi, the German company with a delicious cheesy-cauliflower rice (more cheese, less flower), claims it’s now its top-selling product. Aldi capitalizes on this volley of cauli with other products, like tortilla chips and gnocchi. Tortilla chips made out of cauliflower? Now that’s just wrong, people.
Taken the same way, cauliflower now lands on my “consumables” list. I prefer the riced version with cheese (cheese makes everything better). The hybrid pizza crusts aren’t too bad, like cauliflower with cornmeal. Maybe I’ll even give the vegan Gruyère a try. In other words, as long as cauliflower is an ingredient – not the whole enchilada – I’ll bite.
Kale may now be passé, with white becoming the new green (although cauliflower also comes in orange, green, and purple). Take your pick: roasted, grilled, fried, steamed (aka boring), pickled, or raw. Plant cauliflower seeds in your garden and you’ll have full heads in 30 days or less. With all this demand for stand-in veggies, your next bite may beg the question, “is it flour or is it flower“?
Life In A Word 