Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Daddy on porridge strike

I have to wonder about the wisdom of complete candour in these posts. After making fun of J for his fanatical concern about K's morning porridge intake, he's done what any sensible person would and downed his spatula, tidied away his recipes and gone on porridge strike.

He hasn't actually mentioned my cheekiness, but said with unusual firmness a couple of days ago that K needed milk, not porridge, first thing, the time when he's looking after her, and would I mind doing her "pairritch", as Robert Louis Stevenson calls it in Kidnapped. So when I got up this morning, just before he set off for work, the Jordans Organic Porridge Oats lay unopened on the worktop, awaiting my ministrations.

I forgot to ask him before he left for the recipe he created to make specially small baby-sized quantities and couldn't face ploughing through the crusty recipe books where he might have left it, so decided to wing it. As I might have mentioned, I'm not really much of a morning person, and this turned out to be a mistake.

First I tried the porridge in the microwave but it all boiled over so there was nothing left in the bowl. Like a porridge volcano, really. I wiped up all the mess with kitchen towels.

I thought it might be easier on the hob, but had to keep adding more oats, as it looked too runny. It still didn't look right and the oats somehow bloated outwards, which meant I had to add lots more milk to get the texture like I'd seen it when J made it.

Unfortunately I ran out of the full-fat milk that K's meant to have in her food and had to resort to semi-skimmed, before I ran out of that too, and got the skimmed out. Of course, what with hunting around in the fridge for milk, it all burnt horribly and even now, as I write this several hours later, the pan is still sitting in the sink, waiting for me to scrub it out.

The quantities came out wrong too, but I've dolloped scoops of the stuff into little plastic boxes and put them in the freezer. K seemed happy enough with what I finally produced for her, though not as ecstatic as I might have hoped given the effort involved. I'm wondering how I can face serving up more of the same frozen gloop. As a Scot, I don't think I have much choice. This is my country's national dish. I shall have to show some Scottish grit and return to the oat face tomorrow.

Posted 23 March 2007 14:12

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