OATS ARE HEALTHY AND CAN BE MADE TASTY, BUT......

Wonder if some of you remember the ad by Saffola Oats. This cute woman looks fondly at samosas and chips and nips off the end of a samosa and one piece of a chip. Then there is some sound, a huge smile on her face and she gets a bowl full of steaming masala oats. She takes a spoonful and then relaxes her shoulders and sighs happily. Good for her. To make a routine of eating oats......

My father had been eating oats for several years. He would make his own at exactly 7.30 pm every evening, in one particular steel dish and then carry it to his room. There would be the sound of cutlery at exactly 8 pm, with the sound of news on the TV or a lion roaring in the African forests because he was watching Nat Geo channel. Primarily these were all soothing sounds because this meant that he was ok. He would come to return the used dish to the kitchen, ask if we had dinner and see that we were having a drink, shrug his shoulders and tell us to eat at the earliest.

The crisis in the kitchen arrived when there were no carrots in the fridge and in summer it was a skill to obtain them. There would be talk of inefficiency, lack of attention to him and all the rest. Because you see, Appa never had plain cooked rolled oats. The dish was embellished with a quarter chopped onion, carrot, half a tomatoe and a small piece of ginger. Once it was cooked to his satisfaction, he would add some left over curry from the morning, or sambar and if nothing was available, he would carry on with just the oats. The only reason my mouth would ever water for oats is the aroma which would emerge from the kitchen when Appa was cooking his dinner. In later days when he was bed ridden, his help and more my help, Praveen would prepare the oats and get very upset if I did not give him some suitable curry or daal to embellish the oats.

Appa moved on in 2021. His staple meal, oats got left behind, for I never wanted to be out of stock in this matter. And now we have to finish this stock. Of course good old Ms Google is always helpful and apparently there are 32 ways you can cook this healthy goodness. While I will try out the dosas, etc, I made a pongal today with oats and all kinds of vegetables. I thought it was delicious, though I would not make it that often.

But Murali was stoic about it. Ate his share, considering he was discussing GST with another person, since M is giving a small talk on the subject. So, luckily I did not get any comments but when I gestured if he wanted a refill, there was that look, which said `don't even try......'