Yesterday I had a very glamorous breakfast.
It was glamorous mostly because I was at Pastis, in the Meatpacking District, and because Tory Burch was two feet behind me and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (heart) was at the table directly to my right.
But it was also glamorous because of my oatmeal, which was rich, nutty, and topped with caramelized bananas, and which made a mockery of this morning’s Quaker Instant. Done right, oatmeal is hearty, delicious, and infinite in its potential for mix-uppery (cranberries? pecans? cinnamon? apple pie? all good). Done wrong, it’s…dusty.
Caramelized bananas are the easiest things in the world to make (just coat banana slices in a mixture of melted butter and brown sugar and grill for a few minutes on each side), but it’s the oatmeal itself that really matters when you’re trying to gussy up your breakfast. My father-in-law makes fancy steel-cut stuff every time we visit Ohio, and every time I turn down his offer for a bowl in favor of, I don’t know, a waffle or something a little more exciting-sounding…but every time I end up regretting my choice, because his oatmeal just looks so good.
Which is all to say that I have a question, and the question is this: what are your favorite oatmeal toppings? In search of inspiration for tomorrow morning’s breakfast!
Image via FlickRiver.
