Lately, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with oatmeal.

For the longest time, I couldn’t fathom why.  I mean, I could take the easy route and blame it on my new trainer (from hell) who gives me a list of what to eat for my six meals a day regime.  To understand that, you’ll need to know that he’s a huge oatmeal aficionado, like of epic proportions.  Or I could attribute oatmeal to my desire to regularise certain bodily rhythms and we shall leave it on that ambiguous note.

But in truth, it’s none of the above.

Oatmeal simply reminds me of home.  My home in Kuching, Sarawak, East Malaysia.  It reminds me of growing up as the youngest of two and being utterly spoiled (shhh, brother, let’s not delve into details now).  You see, my Dad loved oatmeal, Quacker Oats to be precise, and he even had a special pot for it.  The cutest most la-la-land looking gizmo ever.  There was a specific ritual to the entire process from weight of oats measured with the precision of a heart surgeon to how long the cooked version needed to chill in the fridge to the milk that was used as a (generous) topping.  Yes, my Dad had my Mum nailing this to a scientific art.

He wanted his oats (or porridge as he would call it at times, spoofing the fodder from Goldilocks and The Three Bears) chilled just so, with that perfect helping of Condensed Milk, mug of Nescafe to the right sporting that blue cap (my Mum had the green cap), and the occasional serving of sliced bananas.

So anyway, after all that rambling and post the consumption of countless bowls of oatmeal, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am homesick.  Or, more specifically, parent-brother-sick 🙂 it’s been three years since I went back to Malaysia and I think it’s high time to have a bowl of chilled porridge with my Dad.

Love, SG

p/s I promise the next post will be less melancholy

pp/s I promise it will not be another three months to the next post